Finding the LightSwitch.

Last Thursday, on a conference call with my new team at my new job, I made a quick joke as we wrapped up, a joke which caused the entire group to burst into unexpected hearty laughter.

I smiled to myself, alone in a conference room on speaker phone, pleasantly surprised they'd found me and my quick one-liner funny.

In that moment I felt buoyed for the first time in a long time.

I felt like myself.

But let me back up a bit.

Last week I was emailing with a friend and she asked how I was doing.  When I replied I told her I felt like I was walking around in a dark room.  'I know the light switch is somewhere,' I explained, 'I know I'll turn the lights on and see eventually.  But in the meantime I'm blindly patting the walls, running my fingers up and down, trying to find that damn switch.'

But wait, perhaps I should back up even further.

When I was a kid, about ten or so, my Mom took me to the beach one afternoon.  I have no idea where my brother or father is in this memory - they came down to the beach too usually - but for some reason this memory is simply me and my Mom down at the Jersey shore for an afternoon.  As soon as we arrived and dropped our blankets that hot day I ran down to the water as I was wont to do.  The sea was particularly grey and choppy that afternoon but it was hot, I was ten, and I loved riding the waves more than just about anything else you could do on a beach day.  So in I went, mindful to stay within the lifeguard's flags, aware that Mom was likely watching me from our tattered old green beach blanket. And it was great fun! I was having a blast!  I was feeling brave and one with the Atlantic! I decided I'd give that huge wave coming toward me a shot.  If it worked, it would be the biggest wave I'd ever ridden, knowing it would carry me all the way to the shoreline.  Now...you all probably know where this is going. I'll save you the drama and tell you simply that before I knew it, that beloved ocean of mine had twisted, turned, and dumped me completely upside down before retreating, leaving my little ten year old self on the shore line covered in sand and seaweed, with water up my nose to boot.

In short, that's about what this June and the first three weeks of July felt like for me.

The universe has been paying me a lot of attention lately.  It's giving me signs and, in taking a page from the ocean, turning a heck of a lot upside down in my life. And so I have a sense that, subsequently, there are changes afoot.  I may not have any idea at all what exactly they are or what they look like, (which makes me panic!) but I am coming to understand there is a certain shifting these days.  The curtain began to close in May on this rather long and sweet run I have had as of late and I sense a new - never before seen - act is beginning. (Something tells me the playwright hasn't written any part of Act Two quite yet so we may all be in for a bit of a long intermission. Nevertheless.)

Back on that ship wrecked afternoon all of those years ago I hobbled up from the shoreline to my Mother.  She set her magazine aside as I stood in front of her dripping wet, telling her what had happened, whining a bit about how I had sand all in my hair and my ears and what a mess that monster wave had made of me.  She listened and then reached into her wallet, handing me a few dollars.  "Here.  You're alright.  Go wash off under the showers and buy us both an ice cream.  We're certainly not going to let that one wave ruin our afternoon."

And we didn't.  For I do still love the ocean so very much.