beauty in the stress

I don't even know where to start writing this. Since my last blog post, I have faced some of the hardest weeks of my adult life. {Now let me preface this by saying that I am blessed that my family is safe and relatively healthy (that's a post for another day) and I am so blessed by that.} The past few weeks I have been stretched mentally and emotionally.

Back in December of 2011, a position opened up at work that I never thought I would be interested in. It was always one that I deemed as "not my cup of tea". The day that it was posted though, my boss and my friend/HR partner independently each emailed me and asked me if I was interested in it and was I going to apply. I laughed at both of them! I was content and happy doing what I was doing, but they both sparked something in me that said maybe I wasn't content. Maybe I was ready for a challenge. Over the next couple days, I rolled it around in my head. The day I left for Christmas break, I texted my HR buddy and told her that I would like to go for it. I thought and prayed about ti all over Christmas break and when January rolled around, I made the move. The next couple months were a whirlwind of change! My old position became divided up over 3 people that I needed to train and be trained myself. 

Finally, in March, I started in my new role. From day 1, I felt the pressure. Although I had a head start on the knowledge, it was still a whole new ball game. A different perspective that I had never looked at before and it scared me. But the crazy thing is that I loved it!

Fast forward to June. My new boss/trainer announces that he is leaving. WHAT!? I hadn't been completely trained because we hadn't reached our fiscal year end yet. All of the "big scary" pieces of my job hadn't been covered yet! The panic started to set in.

Fast forward a little more to October 2012. The panic has built to a whole new level. It is crunch time. Finals week. The Super Bowl. And I felt like I was having one of those nightmares where I am starring in a play that I have never read the script for. Where I walk out on stage and I just have to wing it. If you don't know me in real life, you don't know that this is one of my biggest fears. I am an achiever. I like knowing things. I like being the one with all the answers. I need an A+ on everything I do. That was not the case in this new job.

For the entire month of October, I have been struggling each day to keep my head above water. There have been late nights, tears in the bathroom stalls, angry rants, and way to many cups of coffee. I have beat myself up day after day as to why I couldn't be smarter and just figure this stuff out. Why couldn't I just know it?! 

Now we arrive at this past week. I have never been so mentally exhausted, but guess what!? I started understanding the big, scary reports that I didn't before. All of the things i had been working on for months started making sense and falling into place. I was able to explain things to the auditor that I didn't know I understood. I even allowed my bosses and coworkers to help me with things because I was too swamped to deal with them myself. I learned, I delegated, I grew. 

Yesterday, my boss' boss sat with me and helped me finish the last piece of the project. When I hit the button and it balanced to 0, I looked at him in disbelief. Was I really done!? I didn't know how to feel. As reality set in, I felt like a 100 pound weight had been lifted off of me. Not only was I done, but I understood what I had done!!!!

Over the last few weeks, I have learned some things about myself. Pressure seems to do that to us. I have also learned that if I try to be an island and not depend on people, I just set myself up for failure. Although I don't ever want to relive the last few weeks, I am so grateful for the chance to see what I am made of and to see how blessed I am to have caring, intelligent people around me.

I know this was a ramble and so far removed from the purpose of this blog, but I needed to get these thoughts out. :) Now I am off to catch up on laundry and enjoy just being home for a little bit.

peace, love, and cute shoes~

chrissy