{"id":1232,"date":"2006-09-04T22:14:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-05T03:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/09\/04\/love-shine-a-light\/"},"modified":"2022-07-05T14:47:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T12:47:37","slug":"love-shine-a-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/2006\/09\/04\/love-shine-a-light\/","title":{"rendered":"LOVE SHINE A LIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling the love today and I am so touched and moved and happy that I just had to write about it.<\/p>\n

I’ve signed up as a nominee for my old position of Editor on the AWC<\/a> board. I had been dithering about it for ages, not knowing what to do, because frankly the year off had felt both good and bad; good because I really WAS burned out on the job and because I really had MUCH less to do, but bad because I felt like I was letting down my team.<\/p>\n

I talked to my friend Camilla and was able to begin to better articulate what I was feeling and why I was beginning to lean toward saying yes again. I talked to my friend Kathey about it on a long phone call and got a clear-headed perspective about the whole dilemma and the knowledge that she had my back no matter which way I decided. I talked to my mom and without actually telling her what it was about, got a clear signal that I was heading in the right direction. And then, I talked to my friend Geena at a dinner one night, because I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t make up my mind that last little bit to take the plunge and say yes, or back away with my resignation and my fears intact.<\/p>\n

I told her that in the beginning, when my friends and I were building the club, we were all in it together and it was so much FUN. We were women in similar situations: Swedish spouses, learning a new language, making our ways in a new culture and acclimating ourselves in a foreign country. We became the best of friends and we were close as sisters. Then time and busy lives began to push us apart, a little bit here and a little bit there, until slowly I felt that I was the only one left still doing my part in the club. Each of them had taken a break or moved on to other things, and even though they were still members and some of them were still semi-active, it wasn’t the same because my friends weren’t helping me to make things happen anymore.<\/p>\n

I told her that I missed that part, friends working together in an organization to make things happen, and that I wished I could find that again, and that I was afraid that if I said yes for some of the other reasons that I was also feeling (obligation, distress, control, wanting to help out) that I would find myself regretting it. She sat patiently through the whole mostly one-sided conversation and listened to what I had to say. And then a little while later, when the conversation at the table had shifted to other things, she turned back to me and said, “You know what, Liz? I would like to do that. I’ll be your friend on the board.” <\/p>\n

It was as if a shining light turned on in front of me. She made all the difference in my thought-wrangling process which had stalled in the back-and-forth, pro-and-con tennis game inside my skull. She whacked it out of the court and made the score LOVE. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Then I sat down and talked to Anders about it and got his cautious approval and I think it will work. I really, really hope it will work, and I will do what I can to make it work, because I want to, and I have found that generally<\/i> what I really put my mind to I can accomplish.<\/p>\n

Today, I had 2 e-mails from club members, one a former friend and current board member and one a nominee as well for this coming year, and both of them said how glad they were that I was coming back on board. And then Geena wrote me a letter<\/a> to thank ME<\/b>, and made me cry because I am the one who should be, and is, thanking HER<\/b>.<\/p>\n

And today I worked in my very own office<\/b> and got a lot done and had a good day, and then I got my birthday presents in the mail from my sister; 2 shirts from my favorite store in the States, and they were perfect and dinner with my family all together at the table was fun and chatty and I am so happy.<\/p>\n

The end.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Postcript<\/b>: And then, with my finger poised over the “Post entry” button as I re-read through this one last time, the power went off and the screen went black… AAAAAAAAAAAGH!! NOOOOOOOO!<\/i><\/b>…and I had to write this whole thing over again in longhand (WITH A PEN! OMG!) from memory by candlelight because we had no power for over an hour. But you know what? The light is still shining, just the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling the love today and I am so touched and moved and happy that I just had to write about it. I’ve signed up as a nominee for my old position of Editor on the AWC board. I had been dithering about it for ages, not knowing what to do, because frankly the year off had felt both good and bad; good because I really WAS burned out on the job and because I really had MUCH less to do, but bad because I felt like I was letting down my team. I talked to my friend Camilla and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-goodthings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5178,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/5178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lizardek.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}