Empower Trip Logs, Part 1 & 2
Notes from the Void
The Beginning
I don’t know when I lost my job, or rather when my job lost me. I can maybe trace the time to five years ago, but I held on as is my pattern to do so, long after I should have found an ‘out’.
I gradually exposed my ‘inner adolescent’ at work. She snuck out near the time of my resignation after eight rigid years on the same hospital unit. My friend Laura says that what I refer to as the adolescent in me rebelling is really my Aquarius moon shining strong.
I had found a mission my soul couldn’t pass up! It was time for family to help save my cousin and his wife from their current sh***y lives. They literally were not doing well and in fact, He was suffering from Hepatitis B in a way that caused jaundice and vomiting up of blood. He was only 28 years old. She was suffering from lack of money and cigarettes and dormant hepatitis C. They both had recently lost custody of their son and were in dire straights, all pointing to extreme, long term, substance abuse.
After a month of phone coaching and loving family donations of money and support, I found myself traveling over 2100 miles to work on this project with them in person. First, I drove to Kentucky from Michigan and picked Her up from a seven day detoxification center in Corbin, and then I picked Him up from a seven day detoxification center in Hopkinsville. We drove all day and night until we reached Black Mountain, North Carolina, to drop Her off at a wonderful free, two year rehabilitation program she had applied to.
It was a great blessing to have Luna’s home available to stay at in Black Mountain. Good connections like her are life’s sweet gift. We allowed ourselves in to her accommodating country home, and helped ourselves to clean beds, showers & towels for two nights and a day.
She took us on a spiraling walk on a beautiful river trail in the mountains, and I snapped some poignant shots of my cousin contemplating his current transformations. It was profound and wonderful, scary and odd all at once.
When we called the rehabilitation Center which he’d applied to, they told him they wouldn’t accept him after all, the answer was ‘no’ and suddenly we were like homeless children on the street. He was fully ‘detoxified’ and full of hope, I couldn’t take him back to his hometown in Kentucky! I called his mother and told her the news, so she lit candles and started shaking her rattle and praying right there on the spot.
We followed our yellow brick road to a place called Delancey Street Foundation in Greensboro, NC where he was to sit on a wooden bench, one we referred to as The Bench and be interviewed by a ex substance abuser, who we referred to as the great and wonderful Oz. This person would decide if He could stay in their rehab house, or the person would send him away. If accepted, he would enter the Delancey Castle wearing only the clothes on his back, leaving everything in his life behind. The average stay is four years at Delancey.
It was on this drive from Black Mountain where he was turned away from the first place, to Greensboro Delancey Street Foundation, that my life went into a void mode. In a pregnant silence between country rock drug rehab songs and multiple stops at gas stations so he could smoke away his anxious energy, I realized how I never felt anyone want something so much as He did right then. He wanted to be accepted to Delancey and find hope for a new life once and for all. I prayed to his dead father, our dead grandmother, to Ganesh, to the Angels and to God until I felt the presence of all of them in and around the car with us.
I suddenly felt a strong wave of love for him; I’d forgotten how much I loved my cousin and this hit me off guard. I was overwhelmed with a great cousinly love for him, something I’d not felt since he was a baby. The realization consumed my cells for several miles.
He called to announce our approach as we came closer to the house, and they met us outside as we pulled in. We entered through the large front door, and they sat me in a lobby and him on The Bench. He was to be quiet and not smoke or talk until they called for him. There was no guarantee how long he would have to wait there, and he was to be patient and be still.
I knew he had to pee before he even sat down there, so the savior in me told this to a woman at the lobby desk who arranged for him to be taken to the bathroom by a man who lived there.
I waited in the lobby until they came for him and then I waited some more while he was gone and The Bench sat empty.
When he came back He was crying, and after he sat back down his head hung so low I thought his forehead would scrape the floor. After a while he was taken back to the little room and for twenty minutes I waited in the lobby. He returned again, still crying, and I started to cry, too.
He had been accepted, a miracle!
This whole drama encouraged the men who lived at the house to feel great empathy toward us and them selves. They made me turkey sandwiches for the trip back to Kentucky, with chips, an added apple and two soft drinks. They even insisted on washing my car before I backed it out of their parking area. Considering the circumstances my heart was permanently touched by their kindness.
No sh*t, I drove away listening to Elton John belt out, “Goodbye yellow brick road!” while sneaking peaks at Delancey Street Foundation in my rear view mirror. I was reminded of what really matters in life, of the beauty and strength of the healing wounded, and of souls who genuinely know how to help each other.
During this week of seemingly mission impossible, my boss called three times. He called with declarations that we had to meet NOW. That I needed to drive back to Michigan right away, that our meeting was important and if I didn’t turn around and come back to meet with him by ‘tomorrow’ he’d take me off the schedule ‘today’. Apparently those Aquarian moon issues had gotten me into some hot water with him.
He did not understand that I was on a spiritual mission, it would be difficult to explain the importance of what was happening in two sentences or less, which is what he wanted from me, to be honest. Thus, I would not return to work until I had finished what I had set out to do. My soul had declared that this was the time to help my cousins and there was no compromising on this one.
I imagined he was thinking of me basking in the sun on a North Carolina beach somewhere, drinking long island ice teas and thumbing my nose at him.
He took me off the schedule until ‘further notice’ after our second phone call and strangely I didn’t care. In fact I wondered if this wasn’t a perfect time to push away from my job once and for all.
For years I’d entertained a fantasy to leave this job, yet how could I possibly resign? I pay a large mortgage, receive no child support for one of my kids and only 200.00 dollars a month for the other, living a pay check to pay check existence with no buffer.
But my soul had made other plans, and deep down I knew it was time to fly. Like it or not, I was entering a twilight zone and I had to let go and let God!
So I missed my first weekend of work, unplanned time off, with no vacation moments jam packed into a few expensive days. It was mellow, it was odd.
Yes, for eight years I’d been a weekend staff nurse making over fifty thousand dollars a year for two nights of work each week! This was another reason I felt trapped, it was so ‘very lucky’, ‘so fortunate’ and all, to have five days off every week. Yes, I was grateful and still am so thankful for the gift of that wonderful schedule and great paycheck, especially while my children were young and I was mostly a single mom.
Truthfully my joyful soul was trapped in a never ending somersault of night shift weekends doing something I never learned to enjoy. It wasn’t what I’d planned for myself when I grew up, and I have been living in a geographical area that isn’t feeding my soul. I love the natural setting of my condo near the lake, and I love going camping up north in the warmer months, up north is so very beautiful,
but I seem to chronically miss the mountains, and moving seas.
Not to mention the last few years have been a pull my hair out insanity experience. My daughter rebelled and ran away from home for a while, a marriage and then separation leading to divorce happened, my son began home schooling which was very necessary at the time, my job, did I mention my job? Well, I was not in a joyful state of mind for a long time.
So I planted trees that weekend on my fourteen acres of land in Kentucky, with a best friend and my daughter, Katie.
We hung out in the backwoods and I began to dream of a new life outside my little box of so many years. I envisioned life without my big bad job at the hospital. I knew this was risky as soon as I dare create this sort of dream things begin to move in big way in my life. But I persisted, and even dared consider an existence without living in my condo or whatever else I felt was pinning me to a gerbil wheel.
I drove back to Michigan truly a new person, and on Wednesday morning, the day I was to meet with my manager, I had a powerful and vivid dream: I was on a path walking behind a huge gray elephant just in front of me. Suddenly she stopped so I had to stop. Her belly burst open and a pure white elephant baby dropped out, landing on the path beneath her massive body and facing us. I watched as her stomach continued to move as if more elephant babies were coming out soon, I exclaimed “I think she’s having twin white babies!” but three more baby elephants burst out of her, all gray.
For fifteen minutes, before our meeting, I walked along the painted labyrinth in our hospital garden. It was a Here-Now experience and I’ll always remember it vividly, step by step. By the time my meditative walk was over, I knew what my next big step would be.
We met, solemn and sober. I was confronted with matters needing necessary discipline and attention. I’d been a bad girl, a bad nurse, a bad worker. The issues were not about life threatening acts, I assure you the reader they were about small rebellious charting flaws and involved giving a glass of water to a patient an hour before there was a written doctor's order to do so.
In all my years of working on the med/surgical unit caring for hundreds of patients of very high acuity levels, I have never lost one person to death who was not on their way out with a ‘do not resuscitate’ order on board. I have never lost a patient to a code crisis, because I have always recognized the need for higher care and readily transferred every one of them to a more critical unit before any danger of death was allowed to occur.
It’s an outstanding record for any nurse who has worked this level of care, to be quite frank, so this other business well, I know in my heart that the adolescent in me, or rather my Aquarius moon, had unconsciously created this bizarre situation as a perfect circumstance for me to flee an unloved job environment.
I believe it's referred to as BURN OUT.
I felt at peace as I wrote a resignation letter in his stunned silence, and calmly left behind a position of eight years, with full benefits . . . and an easy mortgage payment.
I just walked away.
I imagine my manager went back to the office and threw a little party. I’d made a lot of money as a weekend staffer, time and a half for every hour worked, even more than most other associates. I’d been a smudge on his budget board for a while. I felt he wanted to rid himself of me. Simply the fact that I imagined this of my manager is all the motivation I need, to justify a move in a new direction.
Part of me wanted to jump for joy and part of me felt cold terror, from here on it is all unknown.
I have entered a void, or a beautiful sort of midlife crisis, only time will tell. One thing I do know, this feels VERY spirit guided.
Notes From Fhe Void, Part 2
Wee Morning Freak Outs and Cantaloupe Confirmations
It’s a rare full night that I sleep through anymore, because most nights are interrupted by the ‘four in the morning freak out.’ In the beginning, when it was very near when my job ended, I’d wake up every morning terrified about no income anymore and fear that I’d have to foreclose on our home.
I had no big plans at first, other than learning to decipher what the big inner plans had in store for me. Inner changes had started directing my outer changes and I’d finally succeeded in turning inside out which is actually what I’ve wanted to have happen to me for a long time.
I was relieved that over the last two years I’d saved ten percent of my biweekly paychecks toward retirement. Although I’d have to pay a huge tax penalty to get what I could from these savings, I figured I could live on the money long enough to change my life around.
Chris has been nudging me from Oregon to move where she is. Before this she’d been nudging me from North Carolina to move there, and for seven years I’d tucked away her invitations as a possible awesome potential for a new life, yet unexplored.
She is the mother of my oldest child’s siblings and we were both married to Leon at different times in our evolution. We have a lot in common besides all this. She and her new husband recently moved to Corvallis, Oregon to a big old house with plenty of room.
I found myself seriously considering a move to Oregon. I could move with my son because Katie is heading to college in the fall. I would not have to pay much for her college.
A gift beyond all gifts occurred this year when Katie, my daughter,
was accepted to Berea College. This is where Leon and I graduated from college, and where my grandfather who raised me taught music as a Professor. This is where I lived for over 23 years, since the age of 10, and where Katie longed for all these years when we moved to Michigan. Most of all, Berea College is a tuition free college, based on income, and suddenly I have no income.
Okay, back to Chris and Oregon, I decided to move there. At first I dropped all obligations for this condominium and planned to let it go, either to short sale or to foreclose. After all, I couldn’t spend all my savings on mortgage when I needed to move to Oregon! I stopped my automatic accelerated payment plan and waited to foreclose. Two days after I usually pay my bill, I broke down and sent the money after all. I couldn’t allow myself to do it.
Four in the morning freak out! Oh my God what’s my plan?
So plan B: Find someone willing to ‘rent to own’ my condominium. I began to advertise on ‘Craigslist’, but as time went by, it occurred to me that renting my place even if it is less than what I owe every month would be completely doable once I begin working a regular nursing job again ( a different area of nursing, maybe psych with kids . . . a new environment). Especially if my bills go dramatically down and income goes up with a cheaper home and higher pay of Oregon.
As people began to call, I started to offer a rent situation instead of rent to own, because I began to feel braver about being able to pay the mortgage difference if I simply had a good chunk of it coming to me each month.
I went to a spiritual bookstore and received a free healing, chakra balancing channeled reading from a wonderful woman named Mary. She channeled to me that it was now time for me to do what my soul came on earth to do, and that many would come to me for help soon. She said I need to surround myself with Buddha energy now. She said that James who worked in the store downstairs was in tune with her readings and that I should ask him to help me find something Buddha like.
So downstairs I went to find James and he was drawn to a Buddha statue which represents a happy family. I was drawn to an elephant statue that I had held for myself at the cash register, which represents abundant, fortunate home and family. Home and family are my theme right now! I placed them on a shelf facing the entrance to my condominium and prayed that I would find the perfect tenants for my condominium and contentment in family life for myself and children, so we could leave Michigan with peace of mind.
It was necessary to show my space, so next came the ‘clearing and cleaning’ days which consisted of putting all our clutter in boxes and bags and storing it out of the way. I need packing boxes and materials so the quest for boxes at local stores became a focus.
At Meijer’s I walked in the door to see a polite manager working on organizing the shopping carts. When I asked him about available empty boxes he immediately pointed me in the direction of the produce section and said there would be some good ones there for me to have. Everything worked out in perfect timing because just as I entered the fruit area ten strong, clean, unique looking cantaloupe boxes sat waiting for me on a shopping cart, they would be perfect for our book collection.
One of the things I stored out of the way in a cantaloupe box was my spiritual alter space. It held a glass doll that grandma made me, and all my jewelry, gems and special things. I put this stuff in a box and placed it in Katie’s bedroom. Meanwhile, many of her books and unwanted clothes were going into boxes and bags, too.
I took car loads of these things to Goodwill, big loads, along with computer copy machines and other hardware, toys and miscellaneous items. This barely made a dent in the amount of stuff I have, but the condominium began to look bare for possible tenants, which was my goal.
For over a week I showed my condominium to people. A few of them seemed decent candidates for being tenants, but none of them ‘fit’ what I really needed.
I began to visualize that the people who are meant to be in my home next, would arrive. I affirmed my visualization and prayers by touching the little elephant and happy Buddha statues, every time I passed my home entrance. I practiced feeling ‘as if’ I were expecting the perfect tenants to contact me, to enter this space.
In the second week of showing the condominium, I showed my space to a very attractive, upbeat couple who are PhD students at MSU in the area of plant biology and genetics. I immediately felt comfortable with them. They fell in love with my Japanese maple tree and lilies of the Valley off the back deck, and they appreciated the laminate flooring that I put in by my self after tearing up the old shag blue carpet. My condominium felt warm and inviting to each of them, we had a click going.
Their application was a solid one and I found myself sleeping on the decision for a couple nights as I continued to pack and prepare for this Michigan exodus to Oregon.
Another ‘freak out four in the morning’ episode happened, this time when I awoke abruptly trying to remember what I had done with my jewelry and spiritual alter treasures. I rummaged through every box and bag in the basement, finally entering Katie’s room in the wee hours of the morning, to search through her closet where I’d stored the goodwill things. She woke up of course, complaining that I was making noise on a school morning long before she needed to wake up. I was distraught though apologetic, because my most precious possessions may have been taken in a big load to goodwill over a week ago!
At five in the morning I drove to a closed goodwill store and placed a note on the door about maybe donating to them my most precious items. I felt helpless as I idled there in the parking lot. On the way home a calm realization swept over me, ‘it’s only stuff' even though it's very precious 'stuff', and what is most important are my children and pets, the living, breathing love connections which I have. These are what I am thankful for and what I have to hold. These are connections which will truly last.
Once home I found the box, it was among Katie’s book boxes. It had been stacked there by the head of her bed in one of those awesome cantaloupe boxes, sitting silently in the dark as I had searched the condominium waiting for me to rediscover it.
I called to offer the bright young couple my condominium to rent and they called me back readily accepting. By the next day we were discussing the lease agreement and going over everything. I’ve had the chimney swept, central heat and air inspected, doors, screens and kitchen cabinets repaired, so when they move in things will be very solid. I also have a great home repair warrantee which they agree to pay for service calls as needed and even improve the premises at their own expense, up to the amount of what they would have given me for a security deposit.
They paid a 250.00 dollars non refundable cleaning deposit and agreed to electronically transfer the rent money from their bank to mine each month. All went very smoothly and when the lease agreement was signed and sealed, we relaxed to visit and talk for over two hours.
He described his studies of plant biology and desire to cultivate a beautiful garden this summer, and she began to describe what her dissertation is about and how she is working so very hard day and night to write it down. The entire project is about the life and production of CANATLOPES!
