Terror and Pain and Other Awesome Things

So, BIG HUGE FANTASTIC NEWS: I started a new job this week. I'm still working at the University, but in a different department with far more responsibility and freedom. It's a distinctly grown-up feeling job, with nicer clothes and an incredibly hectic Outlook calendar and a steep learning curve and a lot more pressure.

Obviously, this is a huge step for me career-wise, but it's also frightening. Terrifying, in fact. But I keep reminding myself to breath deeply, to trust myself, and to trust the search committee that thought I was right for the job.

I also keep reminding myself that a yoga instructor once told my class that "Pain is good. Pain is just the feeling of your life force actualizing." Of course, she told us this as we were sweating and trembling at least three minutes into an arm-aching balance pose.

I keep telling myself the same thing this week: If pain is just my life force actualizing (!), then maybe terror is just my life changing, expanding, moving forward before my mind can wrap quite comfortably around all the changes.

So that's my philosophy and my hope for the next few weeks. I'll let you know how it all turns out.  :)

2010 Recap

As much as I'm looking forward to 2011, 2010 has already been incredibly novel for me. My life has changed drastically in the last year, and so have I. So instead of posting a list of resolutions or expectations for the new year, here's my list of my favorite novelties of 2010--I think they're worth commemorating.

1. Singlehood: Breakups are hell, but, damn, I love doing what I want to do when I want to do it. There are benefits to being single--I'm starting to remember that.  :)
2. New Job: No, make that three new jobs, including two part-times and my first real nine to five (not to mention the occasional freelance editing work!). Entering the working world has been challenging, but I love paying my own way.
3. New Apartment: Downtown Lawrence. Hardwood floors. Big, bright windows. Terrible insulation and laughable wiring and one very pathetic window unit. But I love, love, love it.
4. New Friends: You know who you are!
5. Yoga: I am officially that obnoxious yoga-obsessed person! I think a lot about posture now, and balance, and the importance of feeling strong every day.
6. Healthy Living: In general, I've eaten a lot better, drank a lot less, and worked out a lot more than I have since before I started grad school. It's been great, and it hasn't felt like discipline, really--more like setting myself up to feel good every day.
7. Music: I've been listening to music constantly these past few months, especially more of the ladies (Ingrid Michaelson, Kate Nash, Nina Simone, Cat Power, Erykah Badu, and Janelle Monae) and indie stuff (Ratatat, Arcade Fire, Yeasayer, and Phoenix). I've missed it!
8. TV Obsessions: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who have improved the hell out of my life. Thank you, Netflix, Joss Whedon, and BBC!
9. New Style: My hair is red again, and shorter, and saucier, with stiff little bangs. I wear my big nerdy hipster glasses every day now. I've bought all of my favorite clothes within the past six months. I look and feel like a whole new woman.
10. New Ways of Thinking: I've worked hard this year to think in healthier ways. I try to be kinder to myself, more understanding of others, and more protective of my own mental health. It's hard work, challenging my own assumptions about the world and shedding my mental poisons, but it's work that has made me feel happier and healthier than anything else this year.

As far as years go, 2010 has been both incredibly difficult and richly rewarding, and I expect nothing less from 2011. So I'll leave you with this, one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books of 2010: Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet.

People have (with the help of their conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult: everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us.

Thanks, Rilke, and happy 2011 to all!