Goodbye Lunch

Today marks my last official day at my day job. Maybe any day job. It may be just for the next year until I hit the pavement. It may be forever. That all depends on how this works out.

Before the success and before the failure, there is this day. This narrow bridge between what I know and what I do not. This bridge is a great place to contemplate my choice. I can look ahead and I can look back from here.

Ahead, I’ll be trying my hand at a few things. Growing Bleeding Heart Art Space. Building a community of creatives. Being a professional writer. Magazines and blogs. Newspapers and journals. Web content and corporate brochures. Somewhere, simmering slowly, perhaps a book. Making money making music. Recording an album and playing shows. I hear it’s the right time to try a lucrative career in music 😉

Then there’s speaking, workshops, teaching. All of which I hope to get the opportunity to do, increasingly.

Maybe this space I occupy today is more a tightrope and less a bridge. It seems there is some daring here though I’m oddly unafraid. I’m not looking down, I suppose. I’ve heard some of you gasp. More than that, you all have questions.

Perhaps the best question came yesterday, over lunch. How does it feel? I’ve had time to form a better answer. Here’s how I am feeling, just before I leap today.

Blessed. It’s an incredibly foolish thing to walk away from a job like I have had–a job allowing every freedom to pursue my passions that could be asked for. Many would be walking into fear and an unsustainable poverty. I am not. My wife has an excellent job and we will be fine, regardless of how this works out for me. Of course, I hope the grand experiment plays out. But if it doesn’t, we’ll survive. I’m not sure I deserve to be so blessed as this, but here I am. I am incredibly thankful to my wife and to my kids and to God. Oscar speech over.

Responsible. My wife is making a sacrifice for me. So are my kids. So that I can pursue some dreams. But more than that–some callings. So I feel responsible for doing them proud. To work hard. But not only for them–for God who has given me the gifts I have. For every opportunity to share something good with the world. 

Open. It wouldn’t be right to say I feel free. It’s not that I felt confined before this. But I do feel open. Ready to say yes to new and right opportunities. Ready to give my time where it is best given–to the right projects and more important, the right people. Come and get me, possibilities.

There’s a goodbye lunch for me today. I’ll savour ever minute of it. 

And then, I’m crossing over. 

See you on the other side.

Image by Greg Rakozy, on Unsplash