Just when you think your life is fixed and you are on a path that won't change, BOOM, God throws a curve ball at you. I'm sure you have all experienced that. Part of my new resolve in restarting this blog is to keep it real and focused on daily things that may be of interest to many people and to share my experiences along the way.
My change was a sudden move from NC to MO. I really didn't want to move but circumstances domestically demanded it along with health issues and blood kin problems I was hoping to help with.
All of a sudden, I left beautiful Chapel Hill, NC and found myself moved into a really crappy rural house filled with debris, filthy from being vacant for years, and surrounded on all three sides with: COWS. I never had thought much about cows before this move and experience but now many of my puns are related back to this backwoods, primitive, uncultural, rural setting that I have nick named the cow pasture. I don't mind cows or pastures, and I love farms, but I had never planned
to live in a hick place where it was impossible to find a cappuccino, get reliable Internet, and have constant domestic problems like breaking pipes, clogged sewage lines, spiders, snakes twice as long as jump ropes, a landlord almost 90 years old that won't fix anything, and well, just everything malfunctioning.
After nine months, I had just about given up. The blood kin's emergency had turned out to be a lie with most of them being convicted drug users and con artists. My tutoring business was almost dead in the water due to the nightmare satellite Internet service called Hughes net and then T-mobile broadband, neither of which can maintain a stable, consistent broadband speed making video conferencing with clients impossible. My business partner parked the coaching business we had launched a year prior until I could get the domestic stuff under control (snakes out of the house: imagine one slithering across the floor while you are online or on the phone with a client paying 2k and screaming at the top of your lungs in his/her ear-just not very good for business).
Then about a month ago, I received funding to return to college for a second Masters Degree in TESOL at UMKC. My business partner/mentor moved to Kansas City to be near by. New students arrived. And I started seeing the problem as not being in NC but in being in a rural area that lacked the resources I need. Hey, rural areas are great for raising horses, kids, and cows but it is useless for someone with my objectives, research library needs, and my unquenchable need for GOOD coffee, sky scrapers, museums, shopping malls, and concerts to name a few.
Transitions come in many packages. Often they do not arrive in the way we expect or invite (or in my case, prayed for). In fact, it seems like God has given me the opposite of what I asked for. I conclude that His ways are far more advanced that my intellectual level can process. I trust Yahweh (God the father) and Messiah (Jesus Christ) and I put my life course, business course, research course, book course, and everything into their very capable hands.
I'm back in business: coaching, teaching, editing, and tutoring online and in person if you reside in the Kansas City area. I will be here for about two years until I finish this degree and then I will move on to the next academic objective.
In the meantime, false starts can lead to a new and clearer path that in turn, will lead to a higher objective, new opportunities, and other wonderful things.
Transitions are not easy. They hurt. They REALLY hurt.And they make you cry, scream, and think all kinds of things. But ultimately, logic wins out and we learn how to process the new environment, seek out new resources, friends, and opportunities.
So, I say, "Howdy from the cow pasture!" (at least until I transition to KC once I find a place large enough for my personal research library that is ever growing).
Cheers until my next blog.
June Narber
Adventurer
