Redesign #6 - Feb. 10, 2012

Redesign

I leased a beautiful, brand new home back in 2007 when I moved to the east coast of Florida to work at the LPGA. At the time, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to live, but I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a development that was stuck in the bad real estate market. The owner needed cash flow and I needed a place to live. We struck a deal and I moved in.

But the irony was during that time, while the LPGA underwent numerous staff changes and restructuring, I never hung my framed pictures on the walls of my home because I never felt secure with my own job. Those pictures – still wrapped in moving paper – leaned against the walls for four years.

Finally, last fall, I felt at peace in my workplace and decided to decorate the walls of my home. The pictures were carefully positioned on the walls and I even joked to a friend that it took me four years to do it. And then, in January this year, I lost my job. Trying to find some humor in my new predicament, I joked to the same friend that I should have left the pictures leaning on the wall.

I doubt the framed pictures had anything to do with my present set of circumstances, but they have symbolically morphed into a greater concept of “redesign” that has taken center stage in my life. In fact, sometimes I think God -- or the universe -- puts things out there as hints for what you need to see and what you need to do as you stumble along in your daily existence. And as I follow the metaphoric breadcrumb trail leading me to who-knows-where, I’m struck by this whole concept of redesign. It is everywhere.

And not just on the walls of my home. The neighbors across the street, for example, have been sawing and hammering for weeks to redesign the interior rooms in their home. A few days ago, I walked with my neighbor -- a very thoughtful former Catholic nun -- and she talked to me about where I am right now – “redesigning” my life. Those were her words.

And that’s what it is. I’ve come to believe that is the healthiest way to view this hiccup called job loss. Even in those deep moments of fear and despair, I have to remind myself that all of these hints, messages and directional coincidences are there for a reason. I just have to be observant enough and intuitive enough to “get it” and to realize the options I have in redesigning my life.

I also have to see this redesign as an opportunity for growth and not a time to be angry. I don’t want to spend this precious time being pissed off at the LPGA or at anybody else, but rather, to see it as a space that has been opened up to shape my future and to restructure the floor plan of my present. Just as the neighbors cut and saw closets and flooring in modified patterns from the original design, I have to find comfort in my own redesign and see the rest of my life as “here’s where I want to go and here’s how I want to do it.”

The concept of redesign for me is very important because it allows me to take an unforeseen and detrimental situation and turn it into an opportunity to redefine my objectives and to more clearly see how I want to live my life. It also has forced me to explore what I want my purpose to be. Sometimes when life is easy and the pictures are hanging nicely, you sort of operate on cruise control. You never dream of taking a wrecking ball to your own peaceful existence. Happy or not, fulfilled or not, challenged and stimulated or not, you settle for status quo, draw your paycheck and marvel at how fast the years are blowing by.

These days, I shake my head a lot at so many coincidental reminders. From the screaming band saw across the street, to the wise and even-keeled nun walking her dog, to a friend who is a cancer survivor who assures me that “everything is happening right on time,” and to the tourist from San Francisco in a restaurant who overheard my conversation about spirituality and stopped by my table to say this is a “peaceful place to be,” the directional hints seem to be as abundant as my many blessings.

I am doing a redesign right now. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how all the pieces of the parquet are going to fit together or even if they will. And I have no idea what the “windows” will look like or even how to anticipate the feel of the finished product. It’s all up for redesign, but it is happening. It seemingly takes some degree of demolition to produce the optimal environment for contentment and comfort.

Maybe if I just go with it, do the hard work, try to initiate movement, network, ask good questions, follow up and really give some thought to what I want the rest of my life to look like, this redesign could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

So what if I finally hung up the pictures after so many years? Even if I have to take them down, pack them up and leave, the few months of pleasure I received while they adorned the walls of my home were – unbeknownst to me – the real beginning of a new plan. And maybe as my friend says, everything truly is happening right on time.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 10, 2012

Structure #5 - Feb. 2, 2012

I was scratching my head during that first week away from the office. Normally, I'm a pretty buttoned-up kind of person. I make lists each day and scratch out what I have completed as I go down the list of things I hope to accomplish. Typically, that list keeps me busy well before sunrise to well after sunset.

But I was a mess that first week! Not because I missed getting up at the crack of darkness, stretching for 30 minutes, riding my windtrainer (bike) for 35 minutes, packing my breakfast and lunch (to be eaten at my desk), grabbing a shower and getting on the road no later than 8:11 a.m. Nope, I was a mess because the very structured life I had created was now disrupted.

My routine had been jolted and now I would find my morning teacup on the front door step -- outside!! I also misplaced car keys, cell phones, turkey bacon, flip-flops and notepads. I would enter one room and forget what I came into the room to do. When I told one of my friends that I had suddenly turned into a scatterbrain, he laughed and said, "Well, your brain is probably enjoying some time off. You have always been heavily scheduled."

Scheduled? Indeed.

When you lose your job and now must put yourself on a new schedule, it is an awakening. What you learn is how jam-packed your life has been. And while I certainly could pack a lot into a day -- and still can -- what I'm learning is that sometimes my busy-ness caused me to miss a lot of living. True, you don't always have a choice when you are working in an office setting, but over the last few weeks, I've noticed things I've never seen in the nearly five years I have lived here in this Central Florida town.

For instance, I never realized the flight path between Orlando and Jacksonville regularly stripes the skies with contrails over my house all day long. I never knew a pair of bald eagles regularly perch in the top of a dead tree in the woods behind my home. I never knew how many dogs and dog walkers were in my neighborhood. And I never knew how many people of all ages hammer away in their daily workouts at the gym around the corner. I also didn't know how often my home phone rang each day with people trying to get me to buy or upgrade something. I'm a pretty observant person, but I didn't even actually know where the sun rose and set each day.

Structure is a funny thing. In one sense, it's like it puts a spine in your day. You get up and think of what you need to accomplish and what you want to do. When I went to the office each day, I was on autopilot and did nearly the same thing at the same time each day just to stay on schedule. When or if there was any time left for leisure at the end of the day, it was like a rare bonus. But what I have realized since losing my job is how little of my day was actually spent on myself. And the cumulative result of that is suddenly, nine years later, you realize that it's been like running in place on a treadmill. What do I have to show for that time? And in the course of life, what did it all actually mean?

As a culture, we are busy and most work places are currently understaffed, meaning that workers come to know their slammed-jammed work days as normal. After a while, it became normal to eat breakfast at my desk and several hours later, to also eat my lunch in front of a computer. Some days, I would be so focused on getting through my "to-do" list that I would look up and realize I was one of three cars left in the parking lot as the sun sank into the trees. My goal each day was to leave the office before the staff attorneys finally headed home!

Now, I know that focus, stress and dedication to complete a lengthy list of tasks was in vain. It didn't save my job. It didn't really make a difference. I lived my life faster and missed so much for the sake of making deadlines. But at the same time, I would probably do it all over again. It's ingrained. Maybe it's even generational to work hard and feel a sense of pride in your work. It's also satisfying to give your best efforts at all times even though, admittedly, I would like to take back a few sleepless nights in which I awoke and found myself muttering in the dark about the use of a "better verb" than what I had written earlier that day in the crunch of deadlines.

I still have my lists and I'm still busy as I settle into a new routine. Now, I can stay up later and sleep a little later. I can hop on my bike whenever I want. I can interview people on the phone for freelance projects in my bedroom slippers. I can write freelance stories at my dining room table with my hair sticking up like a woodpecker. I can work away on various projects with my cat sleeping in the chair beside me.

There is structure in place, but this time, I'm trying to do a better job of juggling real life with work. I'm trying to pay attention to where the sun comes up and where the day ends. I'm also trying to say, "How are you today?" to the lonely older lady down the street and to truly listen to her answer.

I know that someday in the near future, I'll get back on that "treadmill" to work, but this next go around, I hope that the structure of work won't ultimately supersede the essence of living. Ultimately, it's not worth it. And I don't want my friends and family to see me as so "heavily scheduled" that they need appointments to get my attention. If I have learned anything in these last few weeks, it's that structure might keep me on task, but too much of it only snatches away chunks of my life that I can never reclaim.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 2, 2012