In the recent talks I've had with my boss, who is often quite perceptive about people even if some people (myself for one) don't always like hearing what she has to say, she mentioned that I "live in my head a lot." I've been chewing on that comment for a while, trying to make sense of what she meant by it, and what ( if it's even true) it means about my life in general. First off, I've decided she's right - I do live in my head most of the time, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Oh, the part that obsesses and worries and agitates everything to death, effectively displacing the positive and encouraging thoughts that make life a little easier to manage - that part of my inner life is not altogether good.
But the part that imagines and dreams and wonders, the part that thinks about people and their stories and how to tell them, the part that hears music and starts playing along - that part of living in my head is all good. But that's the part that needs to emerge from within my head and start living in the real world. I realize I've been hiding this part of myself like a wayward child, keeping it locked within the confines of my brain, and that's why I've been so miserable.
The culmination of my boss' comments was that I had so much to offer the company in my management role that she couldn't understand why I wanted to leave it. Apparently she grasped the concept of me living in my head, but she had no idea what was going on in there. To fulfill the duties of a "manager" in business requires so much energy there's nothing left over for the life going on in my head. My life is not business or management or marketing...it's caring for my family and feeding my creative soul. It may be my particular weakness, but I can't seem to "do it all" with any degree of satisfaction.
This morning, as I was walking my four miles, I was thinking about the people I know at work and wondering about the life that might go on in their heads. What's their passion? Because I think you must have a passion - we've talked about that before. Whether it's music, sports, art, crafts, animals, gardening, car restoration, cooking - something that gets your heart rate up, something you dream about doing, something that makes time fly by.
If you live in your head (like I apparently do) it's easy to obsess about passions and not do anything about them. That's been my problem for quite a while, I think. But I'm planning on changing that in the days and months ahead. I'm planning on bringing that stranger within my head out to meet all of you.
And I hope we'll be friends for a long, long time.