Haibun: Clear Path

I recently had a client who I wrote for Monday through Friday. The guy in charge and who hired me had his direction and the family member he had me answer to had his own direction. The multiple directions was supposed to be addressed, but it never did. Also, this family member thought it appropriate to go in and make changes without saying anything. I told him that was a boundary that cannot be crossed. I couldn’t sustain it for much longer. 

In the chaos of Easter, with schedules lined up and ripped apart by leaders posting what they wanted when they wanted, a disagreement came up. With my two weeks notice in, I was let go after my first week because I “resigned.” My last week, that family member went back to silently changing things without communication to get a reaction from me. I was villainized and all the things an insecure leader does to make their revenge justifiable to themselves and others. I reached the point where my heart closed to the possibility of wanting to ever talk to anyone from that group ever again.

So now looking at the debris on the banks after the rush of a spring river: a bundle of intertwined branches and an uprooted tree the river dominated and left. The options for dealing with this pile of debris really boils down to walking around the mess, moving it, or avoiding this path altogether. 

So I went to my journal, to my reflection, and to clearing these events from my heart. I kept returning to “stay present” when the anger at a leader who used his position for his own vengeance would surge because these are the branches that stand in my own way. This is the work I didn’t ask for, but this is my path I want.  

I’m not at a clear path yet, I just know that what it looks like now is not what it will look like if I do the work I need to do. I’ll figure out my next move from there. Spring is not a permanent state of forever, it is part of life and requires us to work through it like all the other seasons in life.

skeletons of branches

and debris piled along the banks

in the wake of spring