Cathy Yardley's Blog, page 2

Snap out of it.

I have been working with a wonderful time management/organizational (that doesn't even cover it — she's just frickin' amazing, especially if you're creative enough to be really messed up) person who has been helping me keep the many moving parts of my life from grinding me to powder.

One of the things I've appreciated the most is this exercise she does, where you come up with ten things that will help you shift your mood when you sense that all hell is about to break loose.

(She also has you write down "ten signs that all hell is about to break loose" — so you can recognize when you're about to jump the tracks.  I now know that when I can no longer see my kitchen counter for the mounds of dirty dishes, or when I reach for a third cup of coffee, or when I start yelling about really small things, that I'm basically on the merry road to catastrophe.)

Anyway, I've been thinking about what little things instantly make me even a touch happier… and which ones can't easily become abused. Chocolate can calm the beast somewhat — actually, anything sugary and indulgent can take the edge off.  TV can be a balm of sorts.  Video games that force me to concentrate (and thereby numb or block out anything that's stressing me) have been helpful.

The only problem is, I don't simply do something long enough to shift states: I tend to sink into it.  One square of chocolate is fine.  A whole bag of Oreos… not fine.  Especially when a sugar migraine follows.

There are the zen recommendations:  ten deep breaths, a tall glass of water, a walk in nature. These take a little effort and investment — they're not sexy quick fixes.

Then, there are the sensual recommendations.  This was the most surprising for me.  I had fun thinking of songs that I love that make me happy.  When in a bad mood, I usually went straight for "I hate you world!" music, either hip-hop or punk, with a bass line that could give you a concussion. I'm starting to see that probably fed the problem more than alleviated it.  Goofy songs that made me smile (and made me want to dance) were infinitely preferable, and not as much of a stretch as doing the zen ten breath thing.

So far, I've got the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Skinny Sweaty Man" as a go-to.  The Chemical Brothers' "Block Rockin' Beats" and Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" were others — especially the video for that last one.  I'd always thought of Christopher Walken as a highly entertaining psychopath until I saw that video, and I swear, I fell a little in love with him. (And then I saw the cowbell sketch on SNL, and fell the rest of the way.  Which reminds me, that clip will also go on my "emergency bad mood lifters.")

As it turns out, the other secret weapon for shifting my mood came from a really unexpected sense:  smell.

Everyone always says smell is the key to memory.  The smell of a garage can remind you of your grandfather, fresh cut grass can remind you of summer camp.  Hell, apparently the smell of baking cookies can help sell a house.

For me, the smell of tube rose or jasmine is very evocative, lemon and mint are uplifting.  But the one go-to scent that never fails to make me happy?  Almond.  I kid you not.  When I'm gritting my teeth mad, I force myself to go to my kitchen, unscrew the cap to the almond extract, and just take a sniff.

And damned if I'm not feeling a little better… at least, enough to do the ten zen breath thing or go for a tromp in the woods or whatever's next on the list.

So what about you?  What sort of things help snap you out of bad moods?  What songs, what scents, what actions?

How To Get Rid of Bothersome People.

Back in the day, when writing novels was just a glimmer in my newly-graduated eye, I got my first job for a big advertising agency that will remain nameless.

I was hired as an assistant for the account management team.  To give you a sense of the reputation of the account management side, here's a joke I learned while working there (from an account manager, no less.)

The joke.

A copywriter, a creative director and an account manager are at an ad agency at one in the morning, trying to finish a big project.  They're visited by a genie who promises to grant each of them one wish… whatever they wanted.

"I want to live on my own private island, writing bestsellers whenever I felt like it," the copywriter said, and poof!  He disappeared to somewhere in the south Pacific.

"I want to live in a luxurious house just outside of Paris, painting whatever I wanted and making millions doing it," the creative director said, and poof!  She disappeared to her luxurious mansion.

"So what do you want?" the genie asked the account manager.

The account manager glanced at his watch.  "I want those two assholes back here right now."

Mad Men (and women.)

If nothing else, it was fodder for one of my books.  The hellish, worked-a-thirty-six-hour-day scenes from L.A. Woman were inspired by several bosses, but during that first job I did book a 108 hour work week.  My first week, I was told to get tickets to a sold out show (when I pointed this out, I was told "well, of course — because anyone could get a show where tickets were available!")

I wound up learning that the miraculous was often substandard.  Healthy boundaries?  Personal life?  I quickly had those whipped out of me.

Then, I had one particular manager so heinous that, when she was transferred to Mexico some years later, I heard they were passing the hat to have her kidnapped.  (And I almost sent in a dollar.) But thanks to this manager, I inadvertently learned one of the most valuable things I've ever picked up on any job.

Desperate times call for… well, you know.

I was perilously on the verge of crying all the time.  So one of the kind guys in Creative told me about his sister, who had dabbled in Santeria and voodoo.  "Whenever someone pisses her off, she does the bottle spell, then puts the bottle in a freezer."

"Does it work?" I sniffled.

"Certainly," he said, proud.  "It works so well, she had to buy another freezer to put food in!"

This wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement, either for voodoo or his sister's sanity, but like I said, I was desperate.  So my co-worker and I tried it.

And damned if it didn't work.

Shortly after, I got a new job and relatively more sane bosses: I never got another call at eleven o'clock at night from a boss saying "where the fuck have you been?"

Since then, I have seen this work on evil landlords, crazy PTA moms, conniving co-workers and even psycho clients.  In only one case has it failed — and, strangely, even caused the freezer to break.  I'm not sure what happened there.

Without further ado…

THE BOTTLE SPELL.

Note: for those of you concerned, this is simply a "binding" spell.  It doesn't do active harm.  It simply prevents the person who is annoying/harassing/dangerous to you from doing so anymore.  You're not trying to hurt anybody, you're just trying to get them the heck away from you.

For those of you looking for something more aggressive, I guess those doll things with the pins are always an option, but the guy in the creative department didn't know about any of those. 

1.  Get the bothersome person's name on a piece of paper.  Most ideal is a copy of their signature, but barring that, simply writing their full name on a small piece of paper is usually enough. If you're feeling really symbolic, you can tie it up with red string or yarn, knotted nine times… but really, just folding the paper's usually enough.

2.  Get a small bottle.  Baby food bottles are good, or small spice bottles.  I've found glass works well. 

3.  Stuff the paper in the bottle with some garlic.

4.  Close the bottle and seal it with candle wax.  White or red are good colors, but really, anything'll do.

5.  Throw that bad boy in the freezer… deep in the back, hidden behind the mystery meat or that healthy meal you know you're never defrosting.

Results vary, but I've found that the offending person usually stops bothering you in under a week.  It's the weirdest thing ever… but hey, it works.

Best.  Job training.  Ever.

 

 

Limping back from Boxageddon.

Whew.  We're moved.

Third place in two and a half years, but hopefully we're settled for a bit.

I am currently surrounded by boxes. Weird piles of clothes (I think they're clothes) are currently making a foothill in a corner of the master bedroom.  The Boy's room — well, it's more of a mountain, and I don't think it's clothes.

The kitchen… holy hell, don't get me started on the kitchen.

At least the living room's fairly clean.  Sparse.

Because, you know, we've still got a small mountain range of unpacking elsewhere in the house.

Metaphor for my life, y'all.

Because you know I love me a good metaphor.

It seems like my life has been in one big state of flux, especially recently, which I posted about.  I am coming up with systems.  I've taken on new projects.  I'm closing off old ones.

It's like a cross between synchronized swimming and fighting a rip tide.

I'm currently wading through boxes.  Sometimes organization wins.  Sometimes, I get bitchslapped by a file cabinet.  Hopefully still metaphorically.  (Ouchie, moving bruises.)

The bottom line is, at some point I'll have the boxes unpacked, and the house will be in a semblance of order, and things will sort of shake out as they should.  In my perfect world, the house would look like a cross between a loft in Paris and a hobbit hole, cozy and comfy.  My office would be an Arts & Crafts reading room with a huge and deliciously organized desk, the Boy would have a palatial playland, and we'd be living in a provincial paradise.

But as I was falling asleep last night, it sort of hit me.

Everything's temporary.

Including this house.  We're going to move — not soon, we hope, and not out of area.  But at some point, all of this will be in boxes again, and there will be a new system, and a new transition.

The trick, apparently, is to be okay with whatever state — packed, unpacked.  Foothills of chaos and spreadsheet-like order.

It's just there.  Yes, it's annoying as hell to have no microwave and discover the oven's broken.  Yes, I wish I remember which box I packed the book I was reading.  And I'm quite sure The Boy had more underwear than that before we relocated.

But it's just there.

It's just annoyance.  It's just moving.

It's just life, right?

And for tonight, I'm having a whoopie pie, a cup of tea, and I'm snuggling into bed.  Because sometimes, life calls for it.

If I let go, I’ll fall…

We’re moving.  Again.  Third time in less than two years.

This is a good thing.  It’s a fantastic school district.  We’ll be in a house with a ginormous back yard: plenty o’ trees and nature and loveliness for The Boy.  It’s good financially.  It’s good on a number of levels.

That said:  hello, moving stress.

Lots of other changes.

I’ve been shopping my Top Secret Paranormal Project, and I’ve been getting lightly spanked by the “it’s-not-you-it’s-me” rejections from editors.  Yes, it’s lovely to hear “we love your voice.”  That said, I’d prefer to hear “we’d love to publish this.”  Little things.

I have been working with the absolutely phenomenal Entangled Publishing.  They’re new: they’re launching in August, and I am like a frickin’ wriggling puppy, I’m so excited.  I have six authors that I’m promoting, as a publicist.  Because I’m new at this, and they’re new at everything, we’re setting up systems and looking for wheels to not re-invent and things.  It’s very exciting.

And, erm, a little stressful.

I also have my writing blog, Rock Your Writing.  I have been working my ass off, getting that up and running, and this past month I’ve been doing my Mad Plotter special.  I swear to God, it’s so much fun, it doesn’t even feel like work.  I get to talk to people about their plots.  Figure out where they’re stuck, and un-stick them.  They’re happy.  I’m happy. And yeah, I even get paid.  So big fat YAY there!

But here’s the weird thing.  Love, absolutely. But still with the stress, this time stress of the new. And the busy-ness of the business, to use a terribly punny pun.

When life’s chaotic, there’s only one thing to do.  One thing I have pretty much always hated.

It’s called letting go.

I can’t do everything for everyone.  I can’t do everything all at once. 

My arms are too full: I’m trying to carry a mini-van’s worth of groceries in one trip.

I need to put something down.  Put something off.  Let something go.

I have traditionally hated this.  It always feels like a failure.  Like I wasn’t strong enough, or didn’t Tetris-ize my life effectively enough. 

Or I’m afraid that if I put something down, it will vanish.  Or implode.  Or something equally unpleasant.

Sometimes, I’m just scared to let something go.  Like, yes, it’s a lot… but if I let one thing go, then there’s a likelihood my balance will go all cattywumpus and bam! It will all go.  Like pulling out the bottom apple in the neatly organized pyramid at the grocery store.

I don’t know how logical this is, but it’s there, like a particularly real-feeling nightmare.

Sneaking up on letting go.

I’ve been taking a lot of deep breaths, and reading some of my favorite go-to support systems.  Havi Brooks, in my estimation, is a goddess.  She’s got amazing posts on letting go and talking to walls, and if this doesn’t count as a wall, I don’t know what does.

I’ve also been reading Cairene, from Third Hand Works, and looking at her concept of “containers.”  Like nesting dolls, I’ve got my life, and then I’ve got containers for the different elements of my life. The Boy gets his own toy-box styled container.  Hub gets his, as well.  Work.  Writing.  Self-care, a.k.a. “Things That Feed Me.”

The move especially feels like a big metaphor for shedding. “Do I really want to move all these files?  Do we need quite so many frayed towels?  Why do we even still have this Mr. Potatohead?” 

Re-evaluation. Knowing it’ll be good for me.

It means letting go of projects for a while, too.  And most of all, letting go of preconceptions.

I don’t have a lot of clarity right now (see again:  moving) but I wanted to get this down.

What about you?  What are you afraid of letting go?  And when you do let go — what helps you uncurl your fingers and finally put it down?

 

Photo by Charlotte Morrall.  Isn’t it cool?

 

If I let go, I'll fall…

We're moving.  Again.  Third time in less than two years.

This is a good thing.  It's a fantastic school district.  We'll be in a house with a ginormous back yard: plenty o' trees and nature and loveliness for The Boy.  It's good financially.  It's good on a number of levels.

That said:  hello, moving stress.

Lots of other changes.

I've been shopping my Top Secret Paranormal Project, and I've been getting lightly spanked by the "it's-not-you-it's-me" rejections from editors.  Yes, it's lovely to hear "we love your voice."  That said, I'd prefer to hear "we'd love to publish this."  Little things.

I have been working with the absolutely phenomenal Entangled Publishing.  They're new: they're launching in August, and I am like a frickin' wriggling puppy, I'm so excited.  I have six authors that I'm promoting, as a publicist.  Because I'm new at this, and they're new at everything, we're setting up systems and looking for wheels to not re-invent and things.  It's very exciting.

And, erm, a little stressful.

I also have my writing blog, Rock Your Writing.  I have been working my ass off, getting that up and running, and this past month I've been doing my Mad Plotter special.  I swear to God, it's so much fun, it doesn't even feel like work.  I get to talk to people about their plots.  Figure out where they're stuck, and un-stick them.  They're happy.  I'm happy. And yeah, I even get paid.  So big fat YAY there!

But here's the weird thing.  Love, absolutely. But still with the stress, this time stress of the new. And the busy-ness of the business, to use a terribly punny pun.

When life's chaotic, there's only one thing to do.  One thing I have pretty much always hated.

It's called letting go.

I can't do everything for everyone.  I can't do everything all at once. 

My arms are too full: I'm trying to carry a mini-van's worth of groceries in one trip.

I need to put something down.  Put something off.  Let something go.

I have traditionally hated this.  It always feels like a failure.  Like I wasn't strong enough, or didn't Tetris-ize my life effectively enough. 

Or I'm afraid that if I put something down, it will vanish.  Or implode.  Or something equally unpleasant.

Sometimes, I'm just scared to let something go.  Like, yes, it's a lot… but if I let one thing go, then there's a likelihood my balance will go all cattywumpus and bam! It will all go.  Like pulling out the bottom apple in the neatly organized pyramid at the grocery store.

I don't know how logical this is, but it's there, like a particularly real-feeling nightmare.

Sneaking up on letting go.

I've been taking a lot of deep breaths, and reading some of my favorite go-to support systems.  Havi Brooks, in my estimation, is a goddess.  She's got amazing posts on letting go and talking to walls, and if this doesn't count as a wall, I don't know what does.

I've also been reading Cairene, from Third Hand Works, and looking at her concept of "containers."  Like nesting dolls, I've got my life, and then I've got containers for the different elements of my life. The Boy gets his own toy-box styled container.  Hub gets his, as well.  Work.  Writing.  Self-care, a.k.a. "Things That Feed Me."

The move especially feels like a big metaphor for shedding. "Do I really want to move all these files?  Do we need quite so many frayed towels?  Why do we even still have this Mr. Potatohead?" 

Re-evaluation. Knowing it'll be good for me.

It means letting go of projects for a while, too.  And most of all, letting go of preconceptions.

I don't have a lot of clarity right now (see again:  moving) but I wanted to get this down.

What about you?  What are you afraid of letting go?  And when you do let go — what helps you uncurl your fingers and finally put it down?

 

Photo by Charlotte Morrall.  Isn't it cool?

 

When I Grow Up

My four year old son told me that he wanted to be a chef — one that, of course, races monster trucks.  I believe he feels his superhero vigilantism is just going to be a sideline hobby.

He then asked me, "Do you want to be a princess when you grow up?"

I am already charmed that he still believes I haven't grown up, that I still have options.  I also love that he believes "princess" is one of the choices open to me, much like "rock star" or "ballerina."

What did I want to be before, though?

Childhood.

At one point, I wanted to be an Olympic ice skater.  That is, until I came to the crushing realization that I have absolutely no sense of balance. No triple axles in my future. And that was before I heard about the "get up at five o'clock in the morning to practice" nonsense.

Then, in high school, I was absolutely convinced I was going to be a (don't laugh)… geneticist.

I have no idea where that wild hair came from.  I know I was watching a film about Mendel and the damned pea project, and I thought "wow, recessive genes, that's AWESOME."  Maybe it was a control freak thing.  Whatever.  That dream went the way of the dodo when I realized that while the heart was willing, the attention span was weak.  Especially when it came to biochem.

When I signed up for college, I was a double major.  I wanted to simply be an art major, because by senior year I was convinced I'd discovered my true calling:  being an animator.  I'd been in love with Disney movies and other cartoons all my life. (Still am.)  That was what I wanted to do.

Of course, my parents said: "Art school?  No way are we paying for you to learn how to starve!"  (This was before Pixar.  Oh, if only they knew, huh?)  So I made it a double major with Mass Communications, so I could learn advertising.  That seemed "solid."  They went along with it.

Practice of Art became Art History when I learned that nobody at Berkeley seemed to believe animation was an art.  D'oh.

Adulthood.

When I graduated, I discovered that a degree from Berkeley did nothing for my career in any field.  My blazing typing speed, on the other hand, was a valuable commodity.

I became an ad slave.  An ad sales slave. An office manager.  A product manager.  A legal assistant.  An executive assistant.  A financial analyst.

And during all that time, I plunked away at writing.  Scraps of seven-chapter false starts.  Pages of plot outlines.  Character sketches.

Not because I thought I was going to be a writer.  No, real people weren't writers.  Nobody I knew made a living as a writer.  I wrote because if I didn't, I'd go nuts.

I didn't dream of growing up to be a writer, because it's just there, like brown eyes and being right handed.  Nobody I knew got paid to be right handed.

My "thing" became my job, which became my dream.

It isn't easy being a self-employed writer.  There are lean months when the royalty check is a long way away in either direction, and "pasta again?" becomes a plaintive cry.  When there's more debit than credit.  There are definitely days when I miss the steady pace of a bi-weekly paycheck.

But I have been lucky enough to do what I love.  To essentially be what I am.

My son knows I'm a writer.  Sometimes when we play, he likes writing stories with me on a huge piece of paper, which he then illustrates.

He knows that he's already a writer, too.

And he didn't even need to wait until he grew up to do it.

What is this “simplify” of which you speak?

I recently had a dream where I was trapped in, of all places, the Long Beach airport.  It was in some kind of post-apocalyptic seeming emergency.  A few of my writing friends and I were assembling an inflatable dingy made out of raincoats or something, we had a bunch of emergency food supplies and stuff, and we were about to embark out on the water, ready to use makeshift paddles to float our way down to San Diego.

As I was about to get on, it suddenly occurred to me:

You know, we could just drive.

My subconscious says “enough.”

I woke up laughing.  Apparently, my subconscious finally decided to weigh in on my crazy ability to complicate everything in my life.  I have a gift for making every thing way more convoluted than it needs to be.

Considering the things I’m juggling, I guess I should call it a “curse.”

Systems and starting over.

I run another website, Rock Your Writing, which covers promotion, marketing, and business concerns.  It imploded.  I tried adding something to it, and consequently screwed my coding all up… long story short, I can see the text of some of my posts buried in code, but I have not for love or money been able to extricate them.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall (and tech support) for the past two or three weeks, trying to fix this problem.  Largely because I haven’t been able to let go.  I worked too hard, for too long, to just watch those things disappear into the ether.

Letting go is the lesson.

Simplification, I’m discovering, doesn’t seem to be about restructuring.  It’s about editing.  Specifically, it’s about eliminating.  Streamlining.  Surrendering.

I’m a firm believer in Havi Brooks’ concept of fractal flowers.  Long story short, when you take care of one small thing, everything else is tended to.  Learning to edit a scene will help me learn how to simplify, say, my website.  Or my laundry process.  Everything’s related.

Take one small step, and everything moves forward.

So I’m going to let go of the past work, and start moving forward on a cleaner, more streamlined site. I’ve got a new series on the market right now, shopping as we speak.  I’ve got a trilogy hitting next year, in January.

I’m going to stop complicating the business of simplification.

Photo credit:  Ryan Somma.

What is this "simplify" of which you speak?

I recently had a dream where I was trapped in, of all places, the Long Beach airport.  It was in some kind of post-apocalyptic seeming emergency.  A few of my writing friends and I were assembling an inflatable dingy made out of raincoats or something, we had a bunch of emergency food supplies and stuff, and we were about to embark out on the water, ready to use makeshift paddles to float our way down to San Diego.

As I was about to get on, it suddenly occurred to me:

You know, we could just drive.

My subconscious says "enough."

I woke up laughing.  Apparently, my subconscious finally decided to weigh in on my crazy ability to complicate everything in my life.  I have a gift for making every thing way more convoluted than it needs to be.

Considering the things I'm juggling, I guess I should call it a "curse."

Systems and starting over.

I run another website, Rock Your Writing, which covers promotion, marketing, and business concerns.  It imploded.  I tried adding something to it, and consequently screwed my coding all up… long story short, I can see the text of some of my posts buried in code, but I have not for love or money been able to extricate them.

I've been banging my head against the wall (and tech support) for the past two or three weeks, trying to fix this problem.  Largely because I haven't been able to let go.  I worked too hard, for too long, to just watch those things disappear into the ether.

Letting go is the lesson.

Simplification, I'm discovering, doesn't seem to be about restructuring.  It's about editing.  Specifically, it's about eliminating.  Streamlining.  Surrendering.

I'm a firm believer in Havi Brooks' concept of fractal flowers.  Long story short, when you take care of one small thing, everything else is tended to.  Learning to edit a scene will help me learn how to simplify, say, my website.  Or my laundry process.  Everything's related.

Take one small step, and everything moves forward.

So I'm going to let go of the past work, and start moving forward on a cleaner, more streamlined site. I've got a new series on the market right now, shopping as we speak.  I've got a trilogy hitting next year, in January.

I'm going to stop complicating the business of simplification.

Photo credit:  Ryan Somma.

….Annnnnnd we're back.

I have learned the hard way.

Back. Up. My. Database.

After two weeks of intense agony, we're finally up and running.  I discovered I know just enough about WordPress to be dangerous.  Dangerous enough to blow up not one, but two websites.  That takes talent.

I'll write a full blog soon, but I just wanted to say hi, I'm back online.  Missed you guys!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

This blog goes out to all of you who are going through some changes right now.

The last few years have been a roller coaster for me. My best friend Rina would joke that I'm serious about the process, and that I never do things the hard way when the impossible way's available.

I actually joked with her that five years ago or so, I found a red button, said "I wonder what this does?" Then I pushed it.

A portrait of hell breaking loose.

Bought a house. Lost a job. Got married. Had son. Regained job. Lost business.  Moved to new state.  Re-lost job.  Downsized and moved across town.

Basically, the only way I could've added more stress into my life is if I had decided to start public speaking naked in front of a firing squad on live TV.

What I learned.

I am now… well, comfortable's not quite the word.  But I am pretty familiar with change.

I know that "when one door closes, another opens… but those hallways are a bitch."

To extend the metaphor: I also know that change is an airlock.  Until you close the door, the other one can't open.  You've got to be willing to walk forward in the dark, because those hallway lights are out.

I know I'm not the only one in the hallway.  Like a game of Marco Polo, I can hear the voices of friends who have made it to the other end, calling to me, guiding me.  I can feel their hands reaching out to me.

I know not to be afraid of what I find.

I know that bad things aren't forever.  I know in a lot of cases, they aren't even that bad.

The Snake Analogy.

My ex-boyfriend owned a python.  (That is not a euphemism. Oh, my, SO not a euphemism.)

One of the weird things he told me:  if you're ever bit by a python, you cannot yank the damned things off.  Why?  because their fangs angle inward.  Try to pull them off, and they're going to be taking a sizable chunk of you with them.

Instead, you need to push them against you.  This will unlock their jaws, allowing you to disentangle them from your flesh.  You've got to do the counter-intuitive thing… put yourself more into the mouth of danger, instead of forcing a   solution that will only leave you in bloody wreckage.

Ahem.  That one seems self-explanatory.

Surfing a tsunami is a hell of a rush.

There's always some lunatic out there who, when news of a big, gnarly, ginormous killer wave comes in, goes out with his board to tackle the biggest, best wave in the world.

I am not that lunatic.

That said, having found myself out in the waves, I have learned that I might as well try the ride instead of simply flail around.  There's fun in chaos, given the right company.  Thankfully, I have a lot of insane friends who believe in the "ride or die" philosophy.  (Sticky… lookin' at you, man. Tell Greedi he's in there, too.)

I will never tell you it could be worse, buck up little camper, or count your blessings.

Why?  Because even though it could be worse (hello, starving in Somalia), you could think positive, and gratitude almost always helps… you're doing the best you can.  Change is personal.  Sometimes you fly through it, sometimes you limp. Sometimes you giggle, sometimes you weep.

Sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail, right?

I can't say where you are.  But I can say that after a ton of change, I know where I am.

Here in the hallway.  Right next to you.

Hang in there.  We'll make it.