take a chance

Yesterday morning the universe lined up to give me a sign.  I picked up the laptop to discover that the power cord had been severed, exposing all the little wires and was useless.   No connecting though facebook or blogging or email.  The battery had run down as well, so everything was dark.  Done.

Tea and knitting instead and then a short walk of the dog before work. Then back out again, in the car and down the hill towards work and I saw the tire pressure gauge lit up, indicating a potential flat. So directly to Palmers, here is the key, a quick check on the pressure and Yup, the tires are low.  I left the Scion and walked the rest of the way to work.  Grounded.

I didn’t need more than that to see that I was going to be a turtle for the rest of the day.  No reaching out, no zipping around, my office was my shell and I wasn’t going to put my head out to wait for then next event to tell me to stay put.  Be grounded is a basic lesson of life and have patience.

I am a strong, perhaps silly at times, believer in the universe (God) giving us a heads up on things. He speaks to us everyday, if we are listening.  I am not talking about voices in my head, just the subtle signs in life.  If I am paying attention, and roll with it, everything seems to go smoothly. If I see the signs and signals, and then ignore them, then it is alike a big ol’ 2×4 right up-side the head and trouble hits.  I had a sneak peek at my work email the night before from the assistant Dean at Extension, expressing some concern about my writing style on a new blog I have started for work and in his closing, there is an expectation of a “conversation” about how to write a blog for Extension.

The higher-ups at work  have been talking with me about social networking and doing a blog, facebook page and twitter for Extension.  The Dean has drawn up the proposal for the project, shopped the idea around.  I would increase my overall time with Extension to full-time instead of the current 75% and would then spend half my time social networking and the other half continuing work on the AgrAbility grant doing farm safety.

This has been a long time in the making and the increased income is pretty well needed at this time. (when is extra income not needed?) The opportunity to write in this style, and GET PAID FOR IT is huge for me, the dyslexic who is writing. The irony is not lost.   But the flip side is my fear of starting the job and doing what I do, the way that I do it with a bunch of editors that don’t see the benefits of my style.  The criticism of my writing, my wonky wording and most importantly the openness of my words, is a flash back to high school, mostly Milton Academy,  where I tried to write in the way I was told is the correct way to write.  I hated trying to figure out what the teacher wanted me to say so that I could pass the class. Proctor Academy helped me with this and basically saved me.   All the lysdexics out there know exactly what I am saying. You can not pay me enough to go back to that place of frustration and feelings of being the world’s biggest stupid head.

So today my task is to find balance and courage to speak my truth and offer to them ME. The way I write, the openness of my thoughts and the intuition that I will not be damaging to Extension, because I like Extension and I believe in what Extension does for Vermont.  I am not conventional.  I am simply me, and if my blog stats indicate that I am doing well in this format, then I should be fine.  They need to take a chance on me, and I in turn will take a chance that they will get it and I will take a chance on them.  Fingers crossed, here’s hoping.  And thank God for spell check!