Lost and Found

Present Tense:

Here I am, in New Hampshire , being an Innkeeper part time and working to re-design my life and my work in the rest of the time.

I am a terrific guide for others. I can see where they can go and what it will take to get there. I can hold the space for them until they are ready to enter it and once there I can walk along with them as they build their lives anew.

 

However, truth be told, I find it much more difficult to do for myself. My struggles don't invalidate what I am holding out to you, it just confirms that there are no exceptions. Moving from one form of being and doing to another is painful, and confusing. It is full of doubt where before there was certainty and often failure before you realize success again. And, just to be clear, success this time around may not look like success did earlier in your life

 

 

In the movement towards more life we often feel less. Longing for the clear trajectory to arrive at a meaningful destination, we often can't even define, much less believe, that there is a destination so…how can there possibly be a trajectory?

 

Often, we have to endure being a heat seeking rocket – an object seemingly gone awry chasing an illusive and deceptive target. Yet, if given time, faith and courage it can find the next perfect place to hone in. Yes, "next perfect place" - not endpoint. If we are willing to keep growing, looking inside ourselves and questioning what we see - there is no end game. Yes, my friends, it is all about being engaged in process and that means continual change and new morphing forms.

 

 

So, how did I get to the Inn? Interesting implications about the term INN, but that is for another post.

 

About five years ago, aspects of my life and work began to unravel. As Sara Davidson discusses in her wonderful book, LEAP: What Do We Do With the Rest of Our Lives?, I found that what had served me for many years, just wasn't working anymore, or it wasn't working as well as it had. It felt like I was falling through the rabbit hole and entering a new reality, as did Alice. However, for me, there was less Wonder and more Wander.

 

Over the past 5 years I have felt found and then again lost. Like a snake shedding skins, but the shedding is neither predictable nor seasonal. It just keeps going on – skin after skin, layer after layer. Until, now when I feel that I have shed much of what had defined me and kept me feeling safe, I realize that in many ways I am more defined and far less safe.

 

 

Remember that old refrain, "Freedom is just another word for having nothing left to lose". That's where I find myself – free in a way that I have never been, un-tethered as never before and alternating between high creativity and high anxiety.

 

 

 

Lessons from the Innkeeper:

 

I came here ostensibly to run a small B&B, a long time fantasy and a basically safe way of experiencing, it not being the owner. I don't have to pay for the leaking roof, the frozen pipes, or the peeling paint. I came here to down-shift, and finish this book that has been living in my head and heart for years and recalibrate my destination in life.

 

 

However, no sooner did I arrive than I began to take on the intensity of "ownership". I wanted it great. I wanted everything to be shining and lovely. I wanted guests who were delighted and enthralled with my creative breakfasts. In other words, I got lost in the desire to define myself by this new experience. I realized after much struggle and disappointment that I was seeking a new skin that would show me and the world that I had "it". Whatever "it " was.

 

 

What stopped me dead in my manic tracks?

 

 

The owners, who after saying they wanted to build the "business" which had been stumbling along for years, decided that it , or maybe me, were too much work and they said, "Stop". No marketing, No networking, No nothing - Just answer calls, take whatever reservations come in, be nice to people, spend less than $8.00 per person on food and only use just-in-time household help before people arrive. "What! Were they crazy, this is no way to build a business", I thought! Why was I here then? If I couldn't change things – then what?

 

 

The What is turning out to be just what I needed. A roof over my head without overhead and stress; living in a beautiful area where there is quiet and peace and a chance to take a deep breath for several months; finish this book, and perhaps find the heated object of my desire. More to Life at Work, I am discovering is not attaching to yet another Mission-Impossible. It is to find the Mission-Meaningful.

 

Even though I knew that, I forgot it again. Funny how that happens. The outside does not design the inside. I wouldn't be any better or worse, smarter or more successful if the Inn fulfilled my fantasies or if it just stayed the way it always was – with the exception of my being here and bringing whatever uniqueness, caring, and beauty that came along with me.

 

And, when it is over – it is over. But, I will not be over.I will be further down the path than I was when I arrived. I will have gathered more experience, seen myself through yet another prism, taken my measure anew and made some important course corrections.

 

 

After all, isn't that just about as much as any of us can really wish for.

 

 

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