Navigating Change: A Month of Growth and Learning

Standing on the Ledge — Rebuilding from the Rubble

Personal Log — One Month Out

It’s been almost a month now since the cleaning contract was terminated. That sentence still lands with weight when I say it out loud, because it marks an ending I didn’t plan for, and an adjustment I didn’t get to ease into. In some ways, it feels like a long month. In other ways, it feels like it just happened yesterday, and I’m still catching my breath.

So where am I now, one month out? The honest answer is: I’ve been doing what people do when the floor drops out. I’ve been reflecting. I’ve been taking stock. I’ve been sorting through what happened, what I did right, what I did wrong, what was mine to carry, and what never belonged on my shoulders in the first place.

A lot of the last month has been learning in real time. Not the neat, packaged kind of learning where you take notes and then graduate into certainty, but the messy kind where you realize how much you forgot, how much you stopped practicing, and how many routines you let slide because you were too busy keeping everything else from collapsing. I’ve had moments where I catch myself thinking, How did I not see this sooner? and other moments when I realize the more accurate question is: How could I have seen it sooner, when I was in the middle of it?

One of the biggest themes that keeps surfacing is boundaries. Not theoretical boundaries. Not the kind you write down and then admire from a distance. I mean the kind that actually change what you tolerate, what you accept, and what you allow access to. I’m realizing I need to set boundaries with time, with energy, with information, and with other people’s noise. I need to stop certain conversations before they take root. I need to stop people in their tracks when they start feeding me information I don’t need—information that doesn’t help, doesn’t build, doesn’t serve the future, and only pulls me back into a chapter that is no longer mine to live in.

And that may be the hardest part: letting the contract go. Not just “moving on” in a motivational poster kind of way, but accepting that it’s over, that the day-to-day reality of that work is not coming back, and that trying to mentally keep up with what was only creates a private treadmill where I burn energy and go nowhere. There’s a real temptation to keep rehearsing the old days, to keep revisiting the moments, to keep trying to rewrite the ending in your head. But I’m learning that staying tied to what was can become a form of self-sabotage disguised as responsibility.

At the same time, I’ve been working—just in a different direction. A good chunk of the past month has gone into the book. That has become one of the few things that consistently feels like forward motion, because it turns experience into something structured, something usable, something that doesn’t evaporate. It’s also been a strange mirror, because writing forces me to confront my own advice. It’s easy to tell people what to do in a crisis. It’s harder to live it when your own life is the worksite.

If I’m trying to sum up what the last month has looked like in practical terms, it comes down to this: I’ve been trying to keep the fires burning without letting them take over the whole house. That’s the balance I’m aiming for. Keep the momentum alive, but not frantic. Keep the heat present, but not destructive. Keep moving, but not in a way that costs me my health.

Some days that looks like getting things done: errands, paperwork, organizing the next step, making sure I don’t let the calendar turn into a blank stretch of time where nothing happens. Other days it looks like stopping myself before I spiral into what I can’t change, and putting that energy into what I can build.

There are also processes I’ve put in motion connected to the end of the contract—things I still can’t talk about in detail. All I can say is that some things happened that I’m not happy about, and I’m following through the way I need to. That part is ongoing. It’s not the part of the story I want to live in, but it’s part of the work that still has to be done.

In the meantime, I need to keep pushing the practical rebuild. More resumes need to go out. More doors need to be knocked on. I can’t afford to let momentum stop dead, and I can’t afford to keep drifting on the hope that clarity will arrive on its own. Clarity is something you build by moving.

I’ve also decided to take another school class—something focused on communication and conflict management. It starts in a couple of days. I don’t know yet how it will land, but it fits the broader pattern of what I’ve been trying to do: upgrade the parts of myself that need upgrading, not as self-punishment, but as a way of being better equipped for whatever comes next. It also fits alongside other classes I’ve taken. Maybe it will be useful. Maybe it will be frustrating. Either way, it keeps me in motion.

So that’s where I am today. One month out. Still processing the loss, but not camping inside it. Still learning, still rebuilding, still trying to keep the fires under control— not letting them burn out, and not letting them burn everything down. And trying, as much as I can, to take care of myself and follow my own advice.

That’s it for today. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Godspeed.