Out with the old...

You know the saying, right?

"Out with the old, in with the new".

Well, I have been doing just that both physically (all that cupboard cleaning you've already heard all about) and mentally.

And today I felt like talking about this and realized that I was not happy with the idea of surfing the internet to find a way to illustrate it... and, since I have not solved the problems of my digital camera, I've opted to make a slight change to this blog. From now on I will attempt to illustrate my meanderings with home made illustrations. It's been a while since I've drawn on a regular basis so you will have to bare with my not so original, not so self assured, style. Hopefully, practice will make "better".

All this to explain my little simplistically symbolic sketch of how I feel at the moment: like I am shedding a skin that no longer belongs to me. I've always been intrigued by the snake's capacity to do that. I think it has alot to do with letting go and allowing oneself to be "reborn".

One sign of this transformation is all this cleaning out. Another is all the reading I've been doing, about things that have little to do with my profession or my job hunt.

Should I feel bad about not obsessing 24/7 about finding those elusive jobs that, according to all news reports and statistics, no longer exist in the Spanish economy? Of course I'd like to bag one of them, preferably of the species which includes a decent contract! I've sent CVs to all the job offers I've seen or heard of where my experience and skills are of real interest, in Madrid and elsewhere (both nationally and internationally). I've sent CVs to places I would never have considered before. I've extended the search in new directions. Everything I have been able to think of. And I am beginning to check to see if there are any free courses I can try to go to, to try and shore up my skills.

Yet I also want to do other things beyond looking for a job. Like getting this blog going, getting other personal projects that I have long (long as in years and years) left on the shelf, off the floor... is that wrong? For me it feels like a catharsis. And a way to fend off the anxiety of being jobless.

Getting rid of all the negative ticks that I have been accumulating through out all these years of long, long working hours is another exercise. I am taking this "opportunity" of not going to an office every day to try and rebalance my body, my mind, and my sense of self in what I hope is a peaceable way. Maybe some of the changes that result from this are causing friction with some of the people I love most, and I am sorry for that. But I believe that I should be allowed to decide what I want to do with my life.

I like to think of all these projects as part of an overarching and mostly "eco" internal renewal: it necessitates no increase in my carbon footprint (I haven't escaped to any island paradise or mountain retreat to regain equilibrium), nor am I using extra gasoline (there's no speeding on a motorcycle or in a car in an attempt to escape from my inner daemons). What I AM doing is recycling like crazy, seeking to find new uses or new owners for things I no longer need, want or use, and trying to get creative in as many ways as I can come up with: sewing, cooking, drawing, collages... and of course lots and lots of writing. Also a few tests to help clarify what I want now and who I have become. Who I am in this 2010 and where I want to go.

Now, does this first illustration of mine make a little more sense?