Pre Graduation Dance

I'm edgy tonight.
I just saw a small group of my graduating colleagues - had a wonderful time visiting and sharing - and now I'm feeling really out of sorts. Huh.
So...what I am noticing is that twice tonight people close to me have told me how excited they are for me about tomorrow. And I didn't feel any answering excitement. A. told me how proud he was of me - how much he admires this grand accomplishment - and I didn't feel an answering sense of pride.

Which was odd enough for me to take a peak inside at that silence.

You see, I've set myself up again. Once more, I have leaped passed the moment and into the future. I have moved on from savoring the one victory and now see the next hill to be climbed. And while this mentality in itself isn't bad or wrong, there is in it a component of not really wanting to SEE or taste what I have done. It's all about what I haven't done yet. Not quite good enough.

Oh Damn it all to hell and back!!!! Still? Are you serious, Jennifer? Still?

I'm actually smiling. Relief is foremost in my thoughts. The silence begins to give way - softens - and allow some of my own pride and excitement to leak through. It's there - and so quickly gets snowed under the blanket of long hosted stories and patterns.

I am still the woman that I was. I am the woman that I want to be in this moment. And the difference is that I get to be who I am with a nice dose of self awareness. I also get to change the story ever so slightly. I can now tell myself that not only am I good enough but that I get to continue to learn and grow until the day I die. I'm fabulous right now and I am not done yet figuring out what that means. I get to be an unfinished masterpiece of my own creation.

These last two years have been bold paint strokes on that canvas.