An Attack of Pronoia

A car that is even older than mine.

Just because you're pronoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to help you.

Sometimes the randomness of the universe works in my favor, and if I decide to pounce on the opportunity, I can make more things happen in my favor. Take today, for instance. My dentist's assistant called me yesterday to tell me that they needed to reschedule this morning's appointment, which left me with a good deal of "found time". My car was due for an emissions inspection, and my driver's license was set to expire next month, so I decided to use the morning to take care of those two things. And maybe some of the afternoon -- you hear all these horror stories about people waiting in line for hours.

Today is Thursday, a nondescript kind of middle-of-the-week-ish day in the next-to-the-last week of the month. All the government offices closed down on Tuesday because of a snowstorm, but that was two days ago, so maybe any backlog would be at least partly cleared. It was bitterly cold out today, so maybe less hardy souls would not be venturing out. Besides, it wasn't going to get any warmer before the deadline for my car inspection, so today was as good as any.

My friend Lauren had told me to go in the middle of the morning to avoid all the people taking care of their inspections before they headed off to work and all the people taking care of this on their lunch breaks. I headed out from home about 9:45. My side street was covered with a thin layer of hard-packed snow, left behind by the snow plow. Once I got to the main street, though, it was clear sailing. I made it to the emissions inspection station just after 10:00. There were no lines, but each of the inspection bays had a car in it -- except one. In I went. My car passed the test, I paid my fee, and off I went. It was now about 10:15. Unheard of! I've never gotten in and out that fast.

I drove a few yards down the street and turned into the next driveway -- the Motor Vehicles office. The parking lot was filled with parked cars and cars cruising around looking for a parking spot. I chose a row with no cruising or waiting cars, and headed toward the far end. An open space beckoned to me. Handicapped only? No. Reserved for staff? No. In fact, no signs or special markings at all, just an ordinary empty parking space. In the front row. Just a few yards from the door.

I went inside, got a ticket with a number on it, and found an empty seat in the waiting area. Near the front. With a good view of the "now serving" screen. I pulled a magazine out of my bag and began to read. A woman's voice announced over the PA system that the credit card system was down -- all payments must be by cash or check. I peeked into my wallet -- yes! I had visited the ATM not too long ago, and I had enough cash to pay my fee. A little after 11:00, my number was called, and I went to the service desk. Passed my vision check, verified my information, had my photo taken. The first printout of my new license had a scratch on it from the printer, so the woman behind the desk had to print a new one.

While she was doing that, another announcement came over the PA system: all staff members using the driver's license system had to log off immediately. Oh no! But just after the announcement, my new license popped out of the printer and it was un-scratched. The woman behind the desk was none too pleased about having to log off and wait for an indefinite time, since it meant that everyone after me was going to be frustrated and impatient. "It's my lunch break anyway. I think I'm going to take off," she said.

New license in hand, I got back into my car and headed home, arriving less than two hours after I had left, with my new emissions certificate AND my new driver's license. The only downside is that my license photo shows a much less perky, unlined face than I had 10 years ago (the last time I was required to have a new photo). But it's the face I have now, and I'm good with that.

The hat with the purple feather

Last Sunday, a little incident concerning a hat with a purple feather came back to visit me, and it reminded me of how the most seemingly insignificant things can change a person's life. It's a scary thought, but also a great source of validation and inspiration.

These days, it takes a bit more effort for me to move from "isn't that an interesting thought" to actually logging on to the blog site and typing up a new blog entry. I'm building a freelance writing business, and writing that doesn't involve a paycheck and a deadline tends to get put off until some ambiguous "later". The hat incident converged with several other "interesting thoughts", and together, they pushed themselves up to the top of the do-list. So here's a new blog post.

I started this blog partly to keep my friends and family updated on my "reboot year" and partly to help me think my way through the process. In hindsight, I see that this was the "ground school" part of my flying lessons. I had originally intended to spend the first half of 2012 resting and recovering, the next six months a looking for a new job, and then get back to work sometime in 2013. Life had other plans for me.

The more I got into my 2012 reboot year, the more I realized that I would need the entire year to rethink my goals and priorities, train myself to think in new ways, and discover parts of my life that I had mistakenly left behind when I got all wrapped up in the work mentality that is typical of Washington DC. I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with what's left of my life, but I intentionally didn't look for specific job postings.

I spent the first half of 2013 doing career research, looking for opportunities, going on networking interviews, answering job ads, and generally gearing up to re-enter the workforce. I was having no luck at all in landing a new job. I suspect that I'm just too old and expensive for a lot of employers, and I'm not up on things like "user experience" and "search engine optimization".

2013 was the move out of the ground school classroom and into the cockpit. The place where the ideas and theories were put into practice and where I began to test things to see what actually worked and what didn't. I was starting to wonder if I would run out of fuel, crash, and burn. Again, life had other plans.

That summer, I went to a party celebrating a friend's 25th wedding anniversary. I had worked with Beth for several years when I first moved to the DC area, and we stayed in contact ever since. Toward the end of the party, Beth made a point to take me aside and talk to me. "Mike's looking for writers. Would you be interested?" Mike had been my boss when Beth and I worked together, and he was now freelancing for the website of the organization we all used to work for. In essence, I would be doing a small part of my old job, working for my former boss and with my former co-worker (Beth was freelancing for them, too). Luckily, my old job had been a very good experience, and so I was glad to say yes. I contacted Mike and offered my services. That little freelance gig now brings in enough money to pay my grocery bill every month, and it gives me a chance to browse around in all of the scientific journals published by the organization.

A few months later, Lori showed up at my religious community, and she liked it well enough to stay and become a member. Our Community Leader found out that Lori was working for the same organization where I had previously worked, and she introduced us and asked if we had worked together. Lori and I had been in different departments, but when she found out that I was a science writer, she asked if I would be interested in taking on some assignments for some projects that she was working on. Sure, I said, and now I'm writing career advice for college students. Some of what I write draws on resources and research tools that I have used for my own career development -- I'm getting paid for my own job search.

Shortly after that, Tom posted an ad with a professional society that I belong to, soliciting freelance writers for two ongoing assignments. I had written a feature article for his magazine about ten years earlier, when I was trying out freelance writing as a sideline to my full-time job. Back then, I had decided that I couldn't handle full-time work and large freelance assignments at the same time, but now that I'm not working full-time, I decided to respond to his ad. I mentioned my previous writing assignment with his magazine and explained my situation. A few days later, Tom contacted me and offered me the more advanced of the two assignments -- writing regular feature articles for the magazine. I recently submitted my first article, and the check is going to cover my mortgage payment and condo fees.

The point is that all these opportunities grew out of things I've been doing all along. I had no idea at the time that my friendships, my little experiments, and even my struggles would be the seeds of the work that is providing for my needs now. It wasn't my intention to become a freelancer -- the very idea terrified me. But now that I've decided to take this thing seriously, the opportunities are beginning to come. The seeds I planted unknowingly have taken root, grown tall, and started to bear fruit.

My "year off" was not a temporary break, after which I would return "once more into the fray". It was the first step in an evolutionary process that would lead me toward a new stage of my life, and the ripple effects of the things I did years ago have come back to find me.

Which brings me to the hat with the purple feather. Last Sunday, my friend Shirley said, "I have to tell you something. I don't think I've ever told you this before, but I have to tell you now." Several years ago, I facilitated an Artist's Way group at the Washington Ethical Society. To get people to sign up, I was asked to give a short pitch for the group at the Sunday meeting, and I walked up to the front of the room wearing a poet's hat -- a black felt beret with a big purple plume -- that I had bought at a Renaissance festival. The hat got a laugh, and it got people to listen to my short description of what we would be doing in the group.

Shirley was very new at WES, and she wasn't sure if she would continue to attend, but the hat with the purple feather piqued her curiosity. She signed up for the group, which inspired her to take her talents as a collage artist to a much higher level. She also got to know some of the other WES members through her participation in the group, and she decided to become a member herself. Through her participation, her daughter has now begun to attend WES, and she is now an active participant in several of the programs.

I wasn't trying to change anyone's life when I decided, almost on a whim, to wear that silly little hat. I just wanted people to sign up for my group. The ripple effects happened outside my awareness, without any effort on my part besides just showing up and doing what needed to be done. Facilitate a little group, write a little magazine article, make time for chatting with friends. Life takes care of the rest of it.