Here's what I'm thinking today: If this is the end of a season, I better choose to love it now, before it's too late.

I'm always looking back on 'what was' with fond eyes.  Years with LBL drove me mad, but also thrilled me.  So much was demanded of us from the first moments of each morning and to survive, Kristin and I locked arms and ran! It was far from "corporate success" and yet it had all the sexiness of it in many ways. We accomplished so much each day and we kept that firm running week after week. We praised ourselves for accomplishing what so many had failed to before us - and what the sane would have walked away from immediately.

And now, a third industry shift and three firms later, I'm a manager, approaching 30, and once again walking around in mandated pencil skirts and leather shoes. And I'm still day dreaming about the rigor and stress of college, my first job, even high school.  I alternate this with a constant desire for the next thing. And a sometimes borderline obsessive mental agony of not being able to wrap my mind about what that next thing is or how to bring it about.  Is it growing into a director in the design industry? Is it creating the consultant company I dream of?  Is it raising babies and writing out my sleepless fancies while they nap?  Whatever it is, it feels like it must be close... after all I'm just a year from 30.  Where will John and I be at 30?  Where do I want to be?

I know it is just a year, just another age.

Coming home from our grand trip, I didn't have all the clear answers and plans I had hoped to return with, but we did come back with a commitment to give my all, right where I am, for the next 6 months. And then to take an honest evaluation of life.  Six months suddenly seems very short - especially if I'm giving myself the opportunity to honestly consider a huge life change at that time.

So what if that is the end? What if in 6 months, I walk away from the career I have been building for nearly 10 years now?  What then?  I don't want to look back on it and suddenly wish I was still there - had chosen to love it while I could - had thrown myself into it with deeper commitment and energy.

I came home having reset my priorities - God and John at the top - we're building a marriage and family from the ground up here, and it needs time and commitments. But with that clearly stowed in my heart, it makes me feel more committed and free to give myself to here - now - 6 months. And that means work, this career, the one I have today.

So today is about smiles, spreadsheets, meetings, editing profiles, pencil skirts. It's about learning to bring out the best in others, encourage their abilities, draw hard lines, keep confidences, be kind in the most stressful of moments, and give my all. I'll drink too much coffee, work a few too many hours, hit the gym and keep a pair of tennis shoes at my desk.

So that whatever is the next now, I can live in the present.