Long time, no chatter...

I can't believe my last post was the beginning of July.

Actually, I can. It's not at all unlike me to go off the grid when things get hard, or to get tunnel vision when starting something new. I feel like years have gone by since we've moved to Amarillo and I've begun my new job, but it's only been 6 short months.

Work first, and then life.

Work is wonderful. I'm learning more every day, and watching my whole life be transformed along the way. I love the coffee industry the deeper I get into it. More and more, God is putting people in my life through this job that are encouraging, challenging and inspiring. I'm blessed.

This job is challenging me as an employee, an employer, a Christian, a wife...as a person. I feel like I've been forced to grow up in the past 6 months. When I think back to how I used to consider myself abnormally mature for my age and not at all like the other 21 year olds I knew, I cannot help but cringe. Sheesh. I can't believe I was so arrogant. Someone should have smacked me.

This job is hard. And I didn't want to tell anyone that. If I told someone that my job was really hard, that it was really hard being away from all my friends and family, I wasn't as impressive as I wanted everyone to think I was. I was scared, overwhelmed, bitter, and bringing it all home with me at the end of the day. I learned quickly that I didn't know a lot, and that many of my answers at work were going to have to be "I'm not sure, but I can get that information for you", and then find someone to teach me how to get that information. I had to ask for help, despite knowing that my face would burn hot and bright red, giving away that I was completely embarrassed to have to ask for anything. For the first time in my life, I've had to be completely independent. At work I'm on my own. I travel on my own, I work on my own, and I have to own my choices and decisions. If something goes wrong, it's on me. If something goes right, I usually don't know why it did. It's hard.

Around September I finally had my "what-am-I doing" meltdown. The job was wearing on me- all the traveling, all the responsibility. I wasn't managing my time well, and living appointment-to-appointment, plane-ride to plane-ride is impossible. And while I went in to this job over confident, assuming that I of course could transition from managing 1 cafe to managing 75 without any hiccups, I crumbled awfully fast. I wish I had crumbled sooner. Life would have been so easier!

Since then, things have been a little easier. I've been slowly learning how to disengage from work mode when I get home, making sure that my husband knows he is the head of the household. At first it was so hard to come home from a day of being the "boss" and making all the decisions and bossing people around and then completely switch gears. I didn't realize that toll it was taking on my marriage for me to not let my husband make decisions or be able to take care of me, and I didn't even realize I was doing it. Life is so much easier when my marriage works the way God designed it to. Ryan shares the burden, takes care of me and shoulders so much of the responsibility. Without complaining. He makes me dinner, cleans the house and takes care of the finances. He does more than he should. I'm so thankful for him.  

I've found that work is easier when I ask questions. When I stop demanding to do everything on my own so I can receive all the praise. I shouldn't have this job in the first place with my nonexistent credentials, what on earth makes me think I deserve any kind of praise? I do believe that God gave us this opportunity for a reason, and in my craze to be the best at my job, I completely lost sight of that. We're in Amarillo for some reason other than work. I'm not here just to be successful in my job, I'm here for a bigger purpose. And it's time I shifted my focus back to that. Back to the people I can love here and reach out to. To the lady who sits on the other side of my wall who just went through a horrible break-up after being with her partner for 10 years. To the younger girl a couple desks down who moved here to be with her fiance and is  hundreds of miles from her family. To my boss, whose wife suffered a stroke last week and still has not regained full use of the right side of her body. My bitterness, arrogance and ill-intended snark is not helping them. Is not showing them love. It's time to remember why we're here.