Four Six

I am forty-six years old today and as I begin another turn around the sun, it's as good a time as any to take stock.

At the beginning of the year, I chose the word "stretch" as my word of the year. I wanted to challenge myself to move out of my comfort zone.

And indeed this year, I have stretched. My job responsibilities have changed, with the full participation and involvement of my boss. She has pushed for me to be less chained to my desk and more engaged out in the field. This has been fun and has led to a really productive year to date. I've been meeting a lot of people and while I am an introvert I am also good with people, so this has worked out well.

I am no longer looking for a new job. I have made a commitment to continue on this new path. I am also looking to see how I might guide my staff person to help her be more engaged, to help her spread her wings if she is so inclined. This is more of a stretch because she is very negative of late (bad breakup, for one thing). But I do want to try.

The downside to all this new work activity is that I haven't been doing much of my own writing. But I have been stretching in other ways, using my long experience in fundraising. Last month, I wrote a grant request for a film project for Sweet Dub. We will know the result in September. I don't know if we will get it, but we had to collaborate with another nonprofit to put it together, and they want to work with both of us on other projects. Time will tell what that brings...

I also started doing more yoga and body weight exercises this year, so I am literally stretching more than in recent years -- and I love it. Feeling better physically.

Emotionally this has been a rough year and I guess in that sense I am stretching too. Lots of family stuff going on, lots of opportunity for self-examination! Not comfortable, but definitely stretching my perceptions of who I am and where I fit and what the past means.

All that said, I still can't believe I am 46. Shouldn't I have it all figured out by now?!

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