The Place.

Light Bulb moments strike at the strangest times, triggered by the most obscure things.

When I resigned from my 16 year career at one company (April of 2007) - I should have been the happiest person on the planet. For years, I had been subjected to a slurry of people and situations that were so unbelievable on so many levels. I will forgo the specific stories but trust me when I say it was troubling. My loyalty was not appreciated and adults had a forum in this company to act like complete children (but worse). And it is all true - because even I couldn't spin a tale as disturbing as the things that took place there. For my own peace, I decided it was time to cut my losses and just leave. Things were not to be better for me there.

After I resigned, I was still strangely unhappy and still as cluttered up in my head as I always was. It was different - but the same. This in itself caused more undue stress and I was going through the days just forcing one foot in front of the other. Why did I feel so completely out of sorts? I never really did figure it out, then.

In one weird moment, it hit me tonight. For 16 years my identity was so intertwined with this company and being the employee of that company. I blamed my unhappiness on the dysfunction there and yet I could also blame my happiness on the same place. I could blame feeling ill on that place and on days I felt particularly lively - it was because a certain person was on vacation. I would work weekends and drive to that place in snowstorms so frightful travel was not advised - but I would not do the same to go see a relative. The friends I associated with on a regular basis and made exclusive time for - were coworkers. All of this is not obvious when your living it. Its only looking back now that it all fits into this puzzle. My identity had laced its fingers up with this place. I was that place.

I thought leaving would be the answer to my torment and yet looking back, it became like a death to me. Who was I without that place? What was I really? I felt so lost and I couldn't figure it out. I was glued to email and it became my lifeline to my previous "self". I struggled that entire summer.

Then without warning I had the health episode and the checkerboard that was my life had been completely smacked to the floor. New Game.

In the course of a year, I had been completely stripped of all of the material "stuff" I thought was important, that I thought was "my life". When you are living it - you cannot see it.

For the first time in 16 years I am not "that place". I was forced by each event to find myself. I didn't know I was looking at the time - I can't stress this enough. I am happy now. Not because of something tangible or material. I am happy because of the things I cannot see or touch and because of all the things and people that touch me. I am not that place.