Lost and Found

I mis-spoke last week.  I have had two previous "guest bloggers."  One was my dad and the other was my mom...and they were essentially writing to each other via the blog.  

Tonight is, in fact, the FIRST guest blogger who is a) not related to me and b) allowed to chose a topic of her own.  

I am honored to present:

Lost and Found

by Angela Turner Rabke

I hate, hate, hate to lose things.  As a result, I keep a written tally of lost items in the “notes” section of my iPhone.   If I lose my iPhone, no worries!  The list is seared permanently into my cerebral cortex, and I’ll just add them to a new list in my new iPhone with, of course, the missing phone added to “the list.”

The list begins with a little gold ring I lost in second grade.  Backyard, jungle gym.  It was real gold!  With a little purple amethyst butterfly.  I KNOW it is still lurking about, and THAT is why it’s still on the list.  Whenever we are at my mom’s house, I stare at the dirt in her yard, willing it into existence.  Most recently, I lost a pair of black Spanx. No doubt, this is the most troubling item on my list.  I keep waiting for my kids’ teachers to send them home in a lunchbox with a funny note, but no.  My control undergarments have disappeared.

I suppose my ability to keep track of things, to maintain order—somehow translates to control.  If I don’t lose material things, surely I won’t lose my mind, right?  But what does it mean when we lose an idea, or a dream, or a direction?

Right now, I have two jobs in two different buildings, with two different dress codes, and two job descriptions that don’t exactly resemble what I visualized back when I was making these big ‘ole epic decisions about Life (which meant the same thing as Career at the time).  So as I wade through this non-traditional work situation, I occasionally bemoan the lost twenty-something me.  That girl had a promising enough career in a “cool” industry, well-defined professional goals, lots of time for happy hours, and a fairly presentable business casual wardrobe.  I mean, I had HUGE plans to be a major badass.  

Sometimes it’s easy for me to focus on the lost badass, which is why it’s important to be cognizant of what I found on my road not taken:  a mess of good opportunity that could be patched together into my today career, my part-time career, the career that matches right now.  Because the truth is—I don’t really want to be the girl that I meant to be way back then.  This is okay.  I want to be a cool wife, a sweet mommy, and I do want to do well professionally.  As it turns out, I do wish for more happy hours, but when I give myself the space to have gratitude for this schedule, I realize that I’m going to have lots of time again in a few short years.  And I will probably hate it.

If I had more time, I would talk about other big losses-the loss of old friends, the loss of tightly held beliefs, or the loss of firmness in my backside. But what it really all boils down to is perspective.  It’s something I’ve misplaced many times, but I pray that I never lose it.

Angela, Cypress and Meriwether
Angela IS, in fact, a very cool wife, a very sweet mommy, a wonderfully professional "professional" and many, many, many other things...not the least of which is a total BADASS!  I am honored she took time out of her hectic daily schedule to contribute to Fete. The best part is I get to pay her back in bottles of wine we will no doubt enjoy together!  Many thanks, dear friend!