52 for 52. Instalment 11

Yesterday morning I completely and absolutely lost my sh^t. There isn’t actually any other way to put it. The last few months have been hectic, and I knew they would be, and I thought I had been coping well with the pressure.

Until I lost it yesterday morning.? At home, thankfully with only Martin (and Wilson) in earshot and not my team, my clients or the world in general!? But it is something I haven’t done in years and it rocked me.?

?On my drive to the office, I received (an almost random) message from Karolina, my Pastor and the woman who will marry us in just a few weeks and in those few words, and the next few messages, I started shifting back to a place of surrender and grace.

Which meant by the time I walked into my office and preparation for a milestone event – 22 people delivering pitches for their TEDx Style Talk Idea to a pitch panel – I was both grateful for my support crew (Martin, Karolina, my team) and also felt so clearly the centre of my angst; it was the people about to pitch.

I had my heart in my throat by an intensity factor of 22 wanting only the best for them as for the first time they pitched their messages to a panel of strangers.

?And I thought my writing was going to be about anger and its place, about reframing and surrender.

Until I made space at the end of yesterday’s session for each of the participants to reflect and honour what was an incredible marker for them.? The first time they had clearly articulated their idea worth spreading outside of our own bubble.? What unfolded melted my heart.

They all spoke about the safe space created in the last ten weeks; in a way that was deeply profound and appreciative and grateful in a tonal mix I can’t quite define.? And it figuratively, emotionally, brought me to my knees in gratitude.

Because as a little girl my grandparents owned a beach house and we spent our holidays there; as children my brother and I often stayed with just my grandparents.? Slow, hot, salty days, mornings out and on the beach, afternoons strewn across beds on the verandah in the afternoon ocean breezes, cracking thunder storms to occasionally pierce the summer rhythms.?

And I would dream. I loved words and writing, I believed I was destined to be a writer or a lawyer.? I would read books and write in notebooks (I didn’t have the language for journaling) and play with the paper dolls of my Aunts and the barbie dolls of mine.? And in those pages I poured out iteration after iteration of a club. Where it didn’t matter who you were or were you came from, you just had to love words. Writing them, speaking them, playing with them, sharing them.? A space where we would high five simply because we were so damn impressed with just how we strung some of them together.? A place where you could safely immerse yourself in the power of words. Where we could celebrate text books and history books and fiction and romance and sci fi in equal measure. Where reading would spark conversations and writing and debate and laughter, all tangled in together.?

Where words, and our voices, were safe.

And it didn’t land until last night when Martin asked me if I had actually felt the power of that part of our session; if I had actually heard what everyone said.? And I said mostly.??

Until I went to sleep, and the memory of that little girl strewn across a bed in the late summer ocean breezes who would write endlessly about the world she wanted unfolded as if in real time.?

And I realised the greatest acknowledgement I could ever receive is the one given yesterday.? That I am capable of creating the safe spaces for our words and our voices that that little girl thought was just a dream.

That this is my work.?

Jacqueline x

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This year I turned 52, making a deeply personal commitment to write each week in a blog series called '52 For 52'.?Not SEO enriched, not to hold a call to action, simply to express where my lived experiences take and, often, push me, to explore the thinking that bubbles in shower moments and long walks and in the midst of great books.?Some day these will all be published via a dedicated blog site, but for now, I am sharing them with you here each Monday (a little later this week), as I build the rhythm and the cadence that will edge me ever closer to realising my deepest dreams.