It is Time
by Cynthia M. Brown
It is the holiday season again. I just finished that horrible year of firsts. My mother died last November so we did the first holidays without her; first Mother’s day without her; first birthday without her; first anniversary of her death. It was a hard year. I think it is like that for most people. Everything feels not really new but foreign or somehow out of balance. I don’t know that this year will be much different. There are still times when the absence of my father still feels out of balance somehow, I guess that is part of the reason I recently changed jobs. Well, I have a serious nut and peanut allergy which forced me to get serious about making a change. I had too many exposures and got very sick after one exposure. A job opportunity hit my inbox and I took it. It is a very new chapter for me. The work is very familiar. I am back in the food industry. I do some food preparation but mostly it is customer service. I supervise the closing shift in a retail food establishment. What is new for
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me is that for the first time since I was 19 years old, I am not the boss. I have only three responsibilities: I make sure guests are taken care of. I make sure the food is taken care of. I make sure the place is clean and buttoned down at close. It is an odd place to be for me. I am not in charge. I do not hire or fire. I do not make schedules or do inventory. The reduction in my stress has been incalculable. I sleep better. I am just much more relaxed in every way. I have more time for my home life which includes going back to school for my masters which has been a dream of mine for decades. My sister says life is full of seasons. My season for leadership, at least in the form I have known for almost 40 years is over. This is a new time; a new season; a new beginning. Missing my mother, the void created by her death; the lack of balance it has created has made it necessary
Centennial Celebration 2021-2022
