Day 5 - 152 -- Identity

Many small urgent items seem to await me when I arrive at the office this week. Nothing too major today -- but a couple of e-mails that I needed to respond to before I got buried in my 'to do' list items. Carpenters, electricians, painters and plumbers were in the room across the hall undergoing renos. For the most part the work was quiet and sporadic. That should have made my work easier to begin. I did spend a while chatting with a friend I'd not spoken with for a week -- we conversed as she was working in her lab. I then headed back to my office and like yesterday, closed the door, put on some music and began the file culling process. My friend had likened the process and the emotions that surround it to the detritus that washes in with the tide. If you don't pick it up, you'll end up wading through it or it will just come back in 12 hours at the next high tide. While this made me laugh, it did make sense for what I was managing. I did not quit, but made it through several more stacks of files, almost completing the cull for drawer #1. Then, I went to the pub to sit on the deck with colleagues -- in the 27C heat.

After the emotional experiences of yesterday when I began the grand purge, I was trying to name the feeling or feelings. I had felt the files represented who I was. This immediately begs the question, who am I? Identity is tied up in many of our life events. While this may be called a career colloquially, it is more a vocation -- a passion for completing a focused service that also intersects with joy and fulfillment. As such, identity cannot be removed from the purpose, since by definition, vocation is tied up with personal epistomology and ontology. So, when finding memos and papers from past co-workers and reports written by me, they represent more than some distant, dusty activity. They feel like friends. Hence, placing them into blue bags for recycling can be painful -- a thousand little goodbyes.

A song line that hit me as I was working seemed to represent the metaphor used to describe the never ending process I've undertaken. It has a bit of a reggae sound and is from the '80s. Enjoy!

The Tide is High -- Blondie