I’ve always been a gypsy of sorts. Not through my DNA, although I’ve never been quite certain of the bits that went into my genetic cocktail… I am just one of those people who simply can’t stay in one place too long. A vagrant at heart. Nomad would be a kinder word, but entirely untrue, as that would at least imply deliberate intent to one’s wanderings. Mine, to date, have been mostly accidents of geography and circumstance, and an occasional whim.
The last decade and change in our current home has been my longest stint in any one place since childhood, and I unabashedly, desperately need to pack up and move. Only now, this going anywhere at all, means the boys and the pups and the kitty. It means leaving behind the few friends and what little I have left of my family. It means new streets, schools, puppy yard, and boxes and boxes of our lives together traveling to a yet unchosen destination to start over. I’ve no idea how, where or when, but I do know with every fiber of my being that we are indeed moving, and that no matter where we land, we’ll spend at least the first few years there with childlike wonder and curiosity about our new place, and that if we are lucky, we’ll fall in love.
(photo of a very cool building in NOLA by Jon Hardison)
A few weeks ago I turned 40. I don’t feel that old. I’m not sure what being a certain age is supposed to feel like. But I do know that I miss feeling a certain way I used to years ago. I miss the part of me that took me on a 2,200 mile trip from Florida to Sonoran Desert just so I could finish a poem I’d been working on. It felt like the right sort of landscape for the few stanzas I was missing. I miss the part that believed there were real live mermaids swimming under the dark, still waters of the Black Sea. I miss the naïveté of a child who refused to let scientific knowledge interfere with magic of the world around her. I don’t know if age has anything whatsoever to do with it. I just know that I haven’t felt like writing poetry in too many years now, and that I need to change that. And for me, change starts with putting miles between now and then, and finding the new there, even if that, too, doesn’t last all that long.
With the holidays just around the corner, it seems we are all tying up loose ends, gearing up for a better next year and all that goes with it for each of us. I have an inbox full of gadgets, gizmos, tips et al that all go to making the next year more productive, more lucrative, more healthy. There is nothing wrong with any of it, only there is no gizmo or gadget that will make me want to write poetry again. There is no gizmo or gadget that will make me want to take a 2,200 mile drive in search of a few stanzas. And that, above all, is what I want to desire, this year and the next, and for however long my timeline lasts.
So with this, an admission: I think I’m pretty good at what it is I do for a living. I’m a marketer by trade, and at times, we are lucky enough to be able to be just as quirky and creative for our clients as we like. And there is pure unadulterated joy in that, but… None of it will change the world and none of it will ever rise to the level of art, and because of that, none of it will ever be enough to ignite the kind of passion that makes anything seem not only possible, but likely.
I know many of you are setting your goals for next year as you should be. I suck at goal setting, so there is zero actionable advice here for that. Just a small hope that in the midst of business calculations, you leave one row blank, for that one dream, one passion, one idea that you used to think was possible. One that doesn’t belong on a vision board because it’s too silly, childish, honest or maybe just too intangible to snap a picture of.
As for us, we’ll still be here doing our work, but also preparing to embark on a journey of finding just the right landscape for my future stanzas, and for Jon’s art, and the kiddo’s perfect stoop to daydream of things that can’t be bought or sold, and as such, are the ones that truly matter.
Happy Holidays, sweet peeps.
This piece was originally published on our corporate blog at http://teamhardison.com/. Link to source: http://teamhardison.com/featured/so-confessions-of-marketer/
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