First of all – I am thrilled that you here
If you are reading this then I am not talking to myself, although that is a common occurrence in my life these days. Who am I kidding? I have always done it and apparently it is hereditary because both my children do it too. I am getting sidetracked, and if you stick around, you’ll find I tend to do that. That is just one of many traits of mine that my mother says stems from a curious mind. Again I digress, so let’s get back to the case in point.
This is my place to pivot and I welcome you to the table. Why I called this a Place to Pivot stems from an aha moment I had one day while I was walking my dog. At that point I had been searching for a name for this project of mine for a while and I never seemed to be able to commit to any of them. I would go back and forth, mostly procrastinating than anything else but with the same end result. Anyway, during that walk I was listening to a podcast, like one does, and that day it was Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing and his guest was actress Kristen Bell.
When you have an aha moment
Now, I am a bit of a fan of hers as a person and here is why. She isn’t afraid to be imperfect and vulnerable in her public persona. She, and Dax her husband, are very honest about their perfectly imperfect life together. Additionally, unlike many others with a platform, she doesn’t preach that her way is the right way for everyone or that one solution fits all. In that podcast I was listening to, titled “Kristen Bell chooses her lane”, she was talking about her career, her husband, parenthood, sobriety and everything in between. I am listening and just walking my dog when she starts to talk about how she loves that there are always solutions out there if you just look for them. At one point where she says: “OK, that’s not working? Pivot!”
Now that resonated with me. I have spent a good portion of the last decade at university, finally getting my Cand.scient degree in biology. I put it of for a long while – about 20 some years – because of various reasons, but I finally found what I wanted to do and worked hard to get there. While I was at uni I had an accident that left me with some physical pain. That injury, again due to a multitude of reasons, initially didn’t get the attention it should have gotten. That resulted in me living with chronic pain and a deeper understanding of how pain works then I really wanted to have.
Forming a plan
I am a published scientist (only one, but I can own that) with a new degree in a field that I can’t, at least for now work full time in. I wasn’t and am still not willing to give that all up, but neither do I want biology to solely define me. I am a bit of a split personality, not to be taken literally, but in the sense that I can and want to do many things. I like being able to do one job one day and another the next. If I could be a researcher on a Monday and a carpenter on Tuesday switching to environmentalism on Wednesday and maybe a baker on Thursday, I would be happy. But there seems to have been a lack of those kinds of job listings as far as I know.
I know that, because of my current limitations, my best bet is to try to create something where I can work from home or as close to home as possible. But doing what? I want to be able to wear many hats depending on my day and how I’m doing and that is what this is for. We’ll enter this little project. If nothing else it will keep me sane. Hopefully you’ll come along for the ride, just remember I am not perfect nor am I an oracle. I will make mistakes and if you don’t agree with me a hundred percent, that’s OK. I promise that you’ll experience a spectrum of thoughts and emotions, and I might throw a few recipes and projects into the mix, who knows at this point? I even don’t, really. I am just going to throw myself out there, be vulnerable and honest and see what happens.
That being said I have a vision of where I want to end up, it’s just about how to get there. I want to build, contribute, homestead, experience, improve, repurpose, grow, eat, play and love. I also want the journey to my end goal to kind of be a destination in itself, if you know my meaning. To be in the moment and not in tomorrow. I know this road ahead won’t be a straight line, smooth and easy. In order to reach my destination I will have to pivot many times along the way, change my approach and avoid or go around obstacles, and I will try to get out of my own way. So let’s go and in the words of Kristen Bell: