I'm too far away from you, I know, in the way I want it to. I could speed past your way in a vehicle and see the light by your window but you'll never ever know that my coordinates did somehow cross yours. It is not the physical proximity of two people and the longer the time they stayed that way that matters. It is the burdensome weight of marital responsibilities and the comfortable relationship you never thought of anything more than friendship that became tiresome to another whose heart beats much faster than yours.
So today I travelled your way.
And I did so at a splendid speed while you stayed stagnant, doing some justice to the years I've kept close to you in your shadow hoping that I might keep up one day. I did so to leave you behind so I can race to be the best I can be and be free to be.
Photo taken from Rob Cartwright Photography
I recently had a job promotion and a swankier-than-last title change. Because you don't take notice and silence your 'announcement' in the settings, LinkedIn will decide to celebrate for you and broadcast it to your network. The number of 'Likes' and 'Congratulations' poured in and I am very happy because a promotion and/or a title change isn't something that appears at my doorstep everyday. It might be another year or two or three .. maybe four that I have another opportunity as such.
Some people in my network, be it friends or acquaintances, have begun to tell me directly or whispered it to mutual friends that I am 'very lucky'. I don't deny the fact that when I was laid off a few years ago, it took me a relatively short period of time to land myself in a new job. At that time, the new job was a startup company and I didn't know if it was going to be able to survive long in this harsh economy but I needed a job so I took a leap of faith. A few months into the new job, I had to decide if I was going to remain in this industry or go back to being in the Technology sector where all my expertise laid but again, I evaluated the situation and took another leap of faith which eventually paid off when the startup was acquired by one of the biggest companies in the world. Is this Luck or is this the result of my careful deliberation? I would say there is a bit of both.
Have I been lucky? Absolutely! My faith paid off and I worked with one of the best people in the business and he gave me invaluable guidance into the workings of my new world. I met good people who took me under their wings and I started learning business ways I would never had been exposed to and when I was unsure of my direction at work, they gave me a path so I could walk straight home. What then is the problem? You can call me sensitive but the way and the manner in which some congratulations were delivered made it seem like it was just pure luck that I achieved what I did today. To be honest, I am still not earning a whole lot of money out of this promotion but what I did earn was done honestly and with conviction and loyalty. It is a trifle upsetting that instead of getting sincere wishes, it felt like there were also jealous innuendos made by people who actually did better than me in Life and they could not find it in their heart to be happy for my little success.
To these people, I'll like to say no, it was not all luck that I had a promotion.
1. When you were busy dating men, I was sitting in the office chair, having a relationship with my computer.
2. When you read your marriage vows, I was reading endless word documents, sighing "Why me?"
3. Waking up in the middle of the night feeding your babies was tough I know but I didn't have it easy either. I was also up in the middle of the night, attending late calls or trainings.
4. In the weekends when you spent time with your family, sometimes I still had to work through the weekend and once or twice ended up crying on Sunday evenings because it looks like I won't finish the amount of work in time.
5. When the school holidays come and you had to apply leave to take a family vacation, remember, we the singles are usually the one who end up covering your work. We are deprived of taking leave in the month of March, June, September and December because you have children and you automatically think it's your right to.
6. In the times you envy that I had to travel for work but you know what, I probably had less sleep than you do because there are endless networking opportunities that I could not miss out on or had to churn out powerpoints for meetings the next day.
I am always grateful when I get heartfelt congratulations from people about the good things that happened in my life but I hope you don't think that it was all pure luck. The way I talk about my work sometimes is a bit cavalier but behind it all, I am very serious about my success. Depending on priorities, we all have our sacrifices in Life. At the end of the day, you walk in to a loving family ready to welcome you from your tired day at work but I stumble into an empty bedroom. It was a choice and I am not jealous of you so don't you be of me.
