Strategy for a job interview

I came out to Seattle last June to interview for my present job. Planning to come for the interview was enormous—even more enormous than the burdensome task of selling my home and moving cross-country. As much as I wish to be diplomatic, do not wish to burn bridges, I also don’t want to forget that I left a good job because I was unhappy in that job, unhappy with my role and the way I was treated as a subordinate rather than as a colleague. Unhappy that I could not offer my whole person, could not bring all of my talents with me to work every day. Unhappy to feel so severed from myself.

But I finally got it. And it was not too late. The stuckness was suffocating me. Causing memory loss. Self-loss. My important work set aside, perhaps to be lost, like thoughts mislaid or excommunicated.

And so I asked myself: Can I do this? Not just change jobs, but change my entire life again? I had to remember the feelings I had lived with for so many months, not feeling good about myself; my gifts being stifled and unwanted; feeling rejected, angry and depressed. And it was not too late. I had it in me to leap across the continent. Still. Amazing to have forgotten. More amazing to remember.

Memory, but of what? The who I am and where I can be her. Losing sight of myself is why I have failed in relationships, failed in jobs, perhaps even in friendships. In that sense, I am grateful for being able to feel so much discomfort, rather than being able to stifle it. I was thrilled to recover the instinct to locate myself across the divide of dissociation where presence takes flight, and towards the path of being my own companion again. Accompanying myself as scenes shift, as pressures mount, as difficulties arise. I am grateful that I want this life and have not settled for less.

This week I came across these jotted notes, "Strategy for a job interview":

· Feel a strong desire within
· Be humble
· Be aware
· Be appreciative
· Be reflecting
· Use your imagination
· Don’t know everything
· Be curious
· Be attentive
· Feel a deep love for adventure
· Share the spiritual wisdom that you possess

Not bad advice for living. And here I am in Seattle, settling into a life here, liking the job very much, a bit overwhelmed, very grateful.