Thin Ice

iceCAPSWhen it comes to major life events, particularly the painful ones, two kinds of people exist.  Some would rather know that crisis is about to strike while others would prefer ignorance.  2014 ended with a twist I could not have seen coming.  I was laid off from the job I’ve held for the last decade.  If you’ve ever been looked in the eyes and given the “money is down, expenses are up” speech, and walked listlessly back to your desk for the last time, then you know that the buffet of emotions that hunt you in the hours that follow are chaotic and untethered.

The transitions of the last 45 days have affected every nook and cranny of my life.  Getting canned is a stomach-turning, dreadful thing.  Having it happen with some of your closest friends in the room is…well…somehow worse.  My closet, the bookmarks atop my browser, and the calendar I awake to each morning look quite different than they did 2 months ago.  Though I am a man of faith, it has in many ways felt like the ground beneath me gave way.

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My time on the river has recently changed. Instead of going there to gain clarity and think, to organize my thoughts and file things where they belong, I find myself using the time to be a means of squelching the noise within.  In the chaos, I have found focusing on the perfect drift or analyzing a late hook-set to be a potent and necessary distraction.  When the volume raises internally from doubts and hopes duking it out, deciding which run to throw a drift in is a welcome simplicity.

Very little is clear about my family’s future.  We love this city.  We have roots here (I was born three miles from the house where we live).  We love our home and our church.  We love our friends and our neighborhood.  And while most can’t understand it, I have a rich fondness for the river that runs through that neighborhood.  It’s been a sacred space for me.  That said, jobs in my field aren’t abundant in Nevada, so relocation is on the table.  In the interim, I’ve found contract work in marketing and creative direction to fill some hours each week.

I’ll post this week on the river conditions, but I had to depart from the trivial for a moment.  Hope you’ll forgive me.  To a new chapter.  To a reset button.  To the next leg in this crazy journey.

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