(705) 443-9786 karenssoapbox@gmail.com

 

During this time on Facebook, the games have gotten interesting. One of those games involved guessing which one of the listed ten jobs didn’t I have. The next instruction was if you haven’t had 10 jobs name as many as you’ve had and add one that you have not. Well, I found it almost laughable because I could likely name 20!! It got me thinking about something that I wrote in my journal a few months ago. An analogy of how we all individually live this life we have been given. 

How do you live your life? Do you live your life like it is a buffet of all kinds of things to try and sample or do you look at it as a slow sit down dinner, with fewer options but take time to explore every bite? 

This analogy came to me twice in the last couple days and I thought I might explore what that meant. 

When people look at my life I hear many different questions from them. Usually in a very sarcastic tone I hear, is there ANYTHING you haven’t done? Do you EVEN know what you want yet? What are you searching for? I am always initially taken aback because I just don’t see what they see. 

My life has unfolded in this glorious non planned beautiful way and short of spending most of my life without a savings account. I have loved EVERY. SINGLE.  minute of it!!

Every single, joy filled moment, every heart wrenching horrible moment, every uplifting moment, every moment spent in a deep dark depression.  All of it because it has grown me into the person I am. And honestly the only thing I am ever seeking is to be a better me than I was yesterday.  I realise, to some that it looks like I am floundering or not knowing what I am doing, but it is not that, at all.

Throughout my life opportunities have arisen and I’ve said YES. As a young single mother many of those yes moments were based on evaluating where the best next dime would come from, but I wouldn’t change any of it. My son might not say the same thing, but I think his personality benefited from living in all different environments.  He knows equally about farm living, town living and city living, he’s as comfortable at a downtown club as he is at a bush party.

Both of my kids were given this gypsy as a momma and neither of them really have the gene. They both prefer strong stable roots and not much movement, but since I firmly  believe they CHOSE me as their momma I think they help me stay put and I have managed to create more fluidity in them. 

 I actually thought about it and decided to sit down and with as much memory as I have, write down a resume of work, as you will see I usually always came back  to serving to supplement my life, I thought I always would, but that has changed. I enjoyed it on so many levels and honestly it is some of the quickest money you could make legally and with your clothes on 🙂 Here goes: 

High School jobs: Dishwasher, Made and sold petit point jewellery at craft fairs, baby sitter, lifeguard at water slides, first aid booth for the Blue mountain slide rides

Post High School: Live in Nanny, Server

First Marriage and First Born: Restaurant Server/Manager, Manager of Jean Machine, Server/Supervisor

Post First Marriage: Restaurant Server, Bartender, Aromatherapist, Reflexologist, Mindfulness instructor, Natural Nutritionist, Natural Health Clinic owner, Adult educator in natural health studies, Restaurant server

Jobs in Second Marriage: Restaurant server/Manager, Natural Skin Care company, skin care developer, Skin care production educator, 

After Second child: Conference server, Real Estate Agent, Owner of a Soap Nut company shipping throughout North america, soap nut product developer, Aromatherapist and Reflexologist, 

After Second child part 2: Nia Instructor, Reflexologist, Aromatherapist, Natural health instructor, Mindfulness meditation instructor, server, retail merchandiser and Freshii Manager. 

Present day: Hair Salon Receptionist

Whew!! I’m tired looking at it and out of breath saying it out loud!

That is my job list which doesn’t include volunteer positions and hobbies!! I am pretty sure I am missing some of them, but as I typed them all, every single one of them brought joy to my mind. Why? Because at the time of all of those decisions…they were the right ones. Some of them wouldn’t be right for me now but they were so very right for me then.

I know I am not done yet, who knows what else may be on my path. What I do know is that there will be new learning and new opportunities that I never even imagined. I never considered being a retail merchandiser, but there it was right in front of me and I said yes!!

You see I’ve said yes, without much fear of it not turning out because if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. All of those yesses have lead me to, a joy-filled, messy, slightly overdramatic, slightly eccentric woman with a full-on gypsy spirit. That lives her life as high and messy as possible and sometimes as low and dark as my heart will allow.  I have always been the square peg in a round hole and oddly have never really minded being that square peg.

Through all of this, I realize that I am a buffet lifer and as I delve into this more I realize that I am a graiser both in the way that I eat and the way that I live my life. Taking what I like and what works and not taking the others but not afraid to take a small bite of something, and if I don’t like it, letting it go because I know there is so much more from which I can choose.

Oddly enough I am surrounded by sit down dinner people! People with long-standing careers, who started their careers at a young age and are heading into retirement now from that career. But isn’t that what free will is, free will to live your life eating from life’s buffet or choosing a nice slow sit-down dinner with a glass of wine finished off with an amazing dessert. 

I have even noticed this is the way that I am  traversing through the solitude of our collective Pandemic. I have done almost everything that intrigues me that is free on the internet right now. I have enjoyed really fun paint nights, joined a free dance website, enjoyed extra long walks on the path, listened to some amazing concerts and speaker series. I have also started a meditation series for people who would like to learn the art of meditating. Not forgetting to rest and Netflix and chill. Spending my days sampling all of the things I have always wanted to try, but honoring my body and my rest. 

Many others in my life are in solitude in a much different manner than me. My hope is that you are honoring yourself and who you are, whether you are a buffet or a sit-down dinner person. 

What about you, do live your life like it is a buffet, sampling everything on your path or do you live your life with the more stable sit down dinner knowing what is on the menu before you make your decisions? 

Or are you somewhere in between? Is your career your sit down dinner and your hobbies are your buffet? Or are you like my husband and you live within the boundaries of one company but when opportunities arise to change departments you take the risk and say yes?

Have fun with the question, I invite you to explore it, ask your family, ask yourself! You may just learn a few things about someone you love and care about that you never knew before. 

I love celebrating our differences as we travel on this gorgeous winding road of life.

My greatest hope and wish is that you are honoring and taking care of yourself.

In love light and laughter

Karen