6 month anniversary

I realize that today is my 6 month anniversary from leaving my job. It's sort of amazing to look back and see what a wreck I was just before Christmas (I only got through the holidays with gritted teeth and many distracting DVDs). And really, in comparison with how I am now, what a wreck I probably was for the past few years.
This break has been such a luxury and such a gift. Sitting on the deck this morning (a fancy word for a 6'x9' platform off the back door) I can see so many changes. It's much easier, for example, to be helpful...it doesn't feel like "one more thing" when someone needs a hand with something. It's easier to be social more often. My relationships with my neighbors have grown...even the ones to the north who are usually critical of the house and garden. I recently sold my old digital camera to a neighbor down the alley, just from talking over the fence...something that I wouldn't have time or energy for in the past. And because I don't wake up clenched in fear over judgements to come, I can be open to new ideas and new possibilities. I even found that I had many more internal resources to get through a few hard days at Penland productively than in the past.
My Shannon leadership program has been another gift (a year long program which started the month after I left). I'll spend some time later on talking about the program and my own development, but for now, let me say how much I appreciate the knowledge and the 20 new friends I've made who are struggling with the same questions as me.
Since this feels like a marker of sorts, I want to thank and thank and thank my dear friends who have seen me through all of this: Marge, Todd, Sarann, Molly, JJ, John and Earl. I hate for any day to go by without a call to Berta who I know will make me laugh, no matter how absurd life gets. But now this is sounding like a book and there's just way too much life out there before I'm ready to sit down to that project.