Friday 12 December 2014

It's been a year...




...since I stood in front of a panel of architects, with my labour of love standing behind me, while they pick apart many months of thought and sleepless nights. It's been a year since I had my final architectural critique. 

And it's been a year filled with emotional ups and downs. and definitely a large collection of doubt.
After that final critique, an architecture friend asked me how it felt to officially be done, and I remember saying something about how I may have just realized that the last 3.5 years had been a total waste of my time. And that feeling of regret didn't go away right away. It lingered, all through Christmas, and sometimes I just laid in bed and cried (for realz).

And then I started to come out of it. I pulled together an RFP (request for proposal, the way that architects sometimes apply for work) with some friends, for a non-profit group that I adore the work of, and by some miracle my team won it. And shortly after the work started by some crazy insanity and legal means, I left the project team. And the feeling of regret returned.

And my friends rallied around me. And my husband held me. And my connections in the architecture community dug deeper for the belief in my work. And then this strange situation happened, that I found myself in a job so perfect, I never imagined that it could exist. And that's because it didn't, (and in some ways, still doesn't because I'm not permanent yet). But a hospital took a risk on me, and decided to hire me to help them get some of their stalled projects moving again. To not only use my architectural knowledge but to bring my clinical skills of group facilitation together into the amazingness that is my job.

And every day, even on the stressful ones, I can't believe that I get to do what I do. I can't believe that I'm living a life bigger than I ever imagined. And that the risk I took almost 5 years ago, to leave my life as an addiction and mental health counselor to pursue my passion for creating spaces that help people heal, was totally worth it. All those sleeplessness. Those endless hours in front of a computer. the absorbing of the abusive words and behaviour from the faculty and it's profs. All of the shit show that is architecture school was completely worth it.

It's been one of the most interesting years of my life.

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