Earlier this month, over tapas, sangria, and orange juice, Laine tried to persuade me to put my resume together-- a task that sounds as appealing to me and most people I know as performing an appendectomy on oneself. Apparently I had shared one too many "...my company laid off [three Developers/a Project Manager/an IT person]..." stories with her and she was wondering if I was seeing the light. But I felt cushioned by billability-- tracking my current project to the penny and basking in months and months of remaining budget. I heard her, knew she was right, but took no action.

And then late Tuesday afternoon, Ted IMed me with rumors that my company was "considering" shutting down for a week in July. A few minutes of Trusty-Ted-Fact-Checking later, rumors became real and-- even though it's still something being considered rather than put into action-- my blood ran cold. No months of remaining budget or billable projects were going to save me from something like that.

It was like an instant ass-kicking pep talk from Bruce. Suddenly I was motivated. Over the next hour I updated my resume, sent it to Laine to critique, and decided concretely to take her up on her offer to set me up with an informational interview with her company's DC office. I instantly started reading every word of the Post business section. And now I've got a date with the classifieds on Sunday night after B departs for Houston.

Then last night over dinner and Q cards with Melanie and Melica, they got me thinking about this job-space I've gotten myself into-- not really wanting to get an MBA, frustrated with uncreative work environments, locked into a career I've never trained, studied, nor dreamed about. The same age-old questions started floating around inside my head: Isn't life supposed to be sexier than this? Wouldn't it feel great to be invested in something outside of ourselves at the start of every day? If life truly isn't a dress rehearsal, why am I simply going through the motions?

One of my Q cards last night was "Requires Stillness". Melanie avoided obvious references to staying put in my current job or place, and instead predicted that the card was telling me to seriously reflect and meditate about my future career with the kind of time and energy that I've lacked in the past. Then Melica reminded us of the famously quotable question, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" Something clicked.

This afternoon with the sun streaming in my windows and ideas floating all about my head, I'm feeling more open to the itty-bitty possibilities that I would never let myself even dream about. I'm awash in occupational clean slates and do overs. And most of all, I'm swimming in an entirely different place than I've ever been before-- and the water is deep, but warm; a little scary, but entirely refreshing.

In other words, an exciting place to be.