I proudly put my biodegradable bag in my kitchen trash can:
Two Earth friendly activities taken care of. I collected recyclables around the house, as tomorrow is garbage day, and put in a load of laundry with my new environmentally friendly packaged laundry soap. A good day was beginning.
Here's were I seemed to have lost focus:
By the time I got home from shopping, complete with my new soap dispensers and new athletic shoes, which should allow me to walk to work leaving the gas guzzler behind occasionally, I found myself holding FOUR plastic shopping bags. The only time I was able to muster up the courage to say that I didn't need a bag was at the grocery store! I did purchase my meat at the meat counter to avoid plastic, but most likely I was able to do this, just so I could use the words "meat counter" or "meat man" while blogging. Somethings are worth the awkward feeling of behaving differently!
So, I stumbled, but I am already up, and ready to try again!
The real reason for this blog, is as I have said for me to work through some current issues, get a chance to write down the thoughts that swirl through my head, as I make some major life changes. Change feels awkward to me, and I get uncomfortable, so I find myself continuing relationships, behaviors, or habits which are against my better judgement to avoid the discomfort.
Hence, the title The Naked Ride Home. No, I didn't go shopping naked, but to be naked, or feel naked, is the most exposed an individual could ever be, and exposure of any sort makes me uncomfortable. The song is about a couple, who is towards the end of their relationship, and the last ditch efforts the man puts forth to pretend it isn't so. Now, let's get past the fact that he is driving on the freeway in LA, drunk, with a naked woman, and get into the meaning that this song has for me.
I have a dysfunctional relationship with my job. We have been together in some form or another for 17 or so years, give or take a few weeks. It was never my intention to spend such a long time in this particular place of employment. It wasn't helping me plan for retirement or providing me benefits to better my future life or the life of my family.
What this job did was at least in the beginning, provided me with a place where I felt competent, secure, valued, and as if I really mattered. As in any dysfunctional relationship, as things changed, and I didn't feel as competent, as valued, I wanted to make it better, so those feelings would return. I got to the point where I took on an opportunity with a time commitment which was way above my stamina, physical work which was too much for my current health situation, probably because I was not yet ready to admit that I was going to fail, and find my self on the "Naked Ride Home". Exposed, sad, lonely....
I had the exciting opportunity to see Jackson Browne this past fall in a very small 50 person acoustic concert in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin. He was fabulous. He sang the Naked Ride Home, and played in on the piano as he has left the correct guitar behind. Well, when he had trouble with the words, I had the opportunity to "help" him recover the words, and even banter with him, when I thought he was wrong. It was an awesome experience. First of all, no one knew me, so I wasn't as intimidated as I would have been, and because it was such a surreal setting it was hard to believe it was real, so I was comfortable, he made fun of me telling him he was wrong, and everyone laughed.
Today, as I thought about my life, I realized it was no accident that the song he forgot, and the song that will forever be etched in my mind, is the Naked Ride Home. As I continue with the transition out of the dysfunctional relationship with my current job, I constantly feel exposed, as others discuss my short comings. I found myself in a place where I expected to be receiving praise, thanks, and maybe a bonus(!), to really being "stripped naked" and made to realize that it was time, time to move forward, and stop trying to repair something which can't be repaired by me. It is someone elses turn.
So, tomorrow I will awake, and again continue on my way to be environmentally friendly, I hope to continue to have more realizations about myself and my circumstances, for even feeling "naked" and uncomfortable as it may feel, is the beginning of the journey which is the rest of my life.
