Surprise....I'm back at least for today. :)

I realized it has been three years since my last visit.  Wow, time flies despite why.

Three years and a lot happened and yet a lot didn't happen.

My world continued to crash around me, landing me jobless in April 2014 to finalize the three main reasons for grief. (Loss of life, loss of love, loss of job - the trifecta.)

I found myself in the world of the contract employee which was something I had zero desire to do, but keeping the roof over my head was imperative.  The dance studio I was renting in Seattle had to be let go because of the cost of the studio increasing and the fact my life changed so drastically from the previous 4ish years.  Teaching dance resulted in only happening in Tacoma.  Not a bad thing but honestly with everything else, my depression got kicked up the additional notch with the lesser teaching time and just trying to see if I could still keep any teaching going.

My heart, my body, and my spirit was quite broken.

My growth path in my "career" came to a screeching halt in my Export Control arena because I needed to fall back on my background as an Admin Asst.  Oh joy.

It is far from a bad job, but after doing a job of assisting for over 15 years was just enough in my book.  But there I was.

The only thing is that experience enabled me to not sit ideally even being as broken as I was in 2014.  It took a little while but I landed an Executive Admin job with Amazon ... maternity leave.  I learned SOOOOOOO very much during my tenure there.  I had no idea what I was learning other than some newer technical skills in the technical industry, but I also learned in hind site how the job market has changed and what matters to me. 
I needed to adapt not only in skills but also in how the world worked then and now.  Adapting to skills, but also language, and expectations of the "fit" opposed to the best skilled person.  It is about networking it seems.  It also is about what makes you happy, not just accepting whatever job just to accept a job.  I found out a lot there.

I was so inexperienced in the networking way and with being such an introvert, it honestly was one of the most (and still is) difficult things for me to do.

I moved on from Amazon to T-Mobile, and got reminded there about having fun, both with the company as a whole and working with a couple of awesome EAs that cared, but I also learned about those that label people by appearance and placing walls in the way. 
I apparently didn't met the visual expectation of one of the VPs which made it hard to actually do anything to the level they wanted.  I was set up to fail with that VP and so were the three people following me.  I have no clue if anyone succeeded, and it isn't my problem so I don't care past the fact it is a part of my growth.  I just miss the two wonderful ladies I worked with...back to that keeping in touch aspect I need to do.

My next adventure began immediately after T-Mobile with what was deemed by so many as "The Evil Empire" called Microsoft.  I used to joke that way just because...no excuse I just did.  I don't any more.

My time there had its ups (awesome teams and Directors I supported) and downs (contract ending sooner than expected) but luckily the last year there was where I got to find me again.
I worked with the best team, and my direct boss there apparently understood more than I realized.

I can never speak highly enough of my experience there.  My feeling a part of the team even though I was a vendor and how I was allowed to find my feet and given the gift of having a lot of "cheerleaders" in my corner there.  I am very humbled by that part of the equation.  I have found friends there not just coworkers.

Which I need to touch base with in a few days. :)

The biggest change has occurred and I couldn't be more thrilled.  I keep feeling like I have to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming.  I have a new job that ISN'T a contract position.  A position enabling me to get back into the field of export control even if cursory.

I am again a contract administrator with an aerospace company (not Boeing). ;)  Part of my joking around.  Boeing is a good company but I am not there. :)

I am just thrilled to get into the meat of the job but it takes time to learn the products and the processes/procedures at this company.  So, yes, I know I have to be patient with myself and what I need to learn which is a lot.

So what else has all this time and change taught me.

I need to love myself. I need to trust in myself...duh I know.

For the first time ever in my dating life, I did start "seeing" someone in a rather casual way back in 2014 since I was definitely not open to a relationship.  A friends with benefits sort of thing I guess you might call it.  If that honestly in looking back.

A relationship of that type lasting for two years was about 18 months too long.  Normally those types of hook up only last a short time, but for some reason it went two years.  I am the one who decided I was looking for more if there was going to be a relationship.  I laid down the rule.  A new thing coming from me.  The physical relationship has ended, not that we weren't a good "connection" in that way, but it wasn't enough.  I, also, was discovering how difficult this person was in their political direction and their machismo....Italian American descent from New York state.  Ok, I do understand it, but it was becoming difficult for me to stomach for anything longer than just the sex.  But yet, he catered to me and treated me with a level of respect that I missed.  Just his focus was about sex and the pressure to have sex constantly which became old causing me to withdraw.
Much like a writing I read recently of a married couple who agreed to be sexless.  Once sex was off the "pressure" table the desire for sex came back....I work this way apparently.  Pressure me and I pull away.  Stop pressuring me and in time I will start coming forward and desiring it.  Humans need to stop pressuring one another and we might find we actually get what we want in the end.

Anywho...

Because my internal decision became an external decision, it seems to have affected my response to admirers from others.  I guess I am no longer interested in having what is being presented to me. Before my "need" for acceptance or looking for love might have let me start there in hopes of love coming from it, is no longer my way.  Back to the pressure thing.  The moment someone flirts and immediate taps into something sexual, I shut down currently.

Wow.....
It is like it flips my off switch.  I am tired of feeling like an object of sex or attraction, while I love sex and "making love," it isn't my focus.  I have learned how to shelve that side of me.  I need someone to show me, they see me...the inside part not just the sexual part.  I need the sapiosexual side not the horn dog side. :)

Enough of this side of me....

I am finding myself in a real growth period.  I just need to find my more motivation button.  I am better but I need more, and how not to get distracted so easily. :)

I guess this is all I have to say at the moment.  I had so many thoughts which seemed to have condensed or disappeared...don't know just is what it is.