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Danielle Tietjen

North Minneapolis
MN
Author Speaker Storyteller Cook Artist

Danielle Tietjen

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Wide open space: my life in transition

September 2, 2015 Dani Tietjen
Image by Katrina Hannemann with Studio Laguna

Image by Katrina Hannemann with Studio Laguna

***Update*** This was a post I wrote a few months ago, but wanted to wait to post. Funny how these feelings still feel the same.

I sent my last child off to school this morning.

All I feel is a strangeness now and I don't know how to live in that place.

The strange and unfamiliar is a constant presence outside of my space; the neighborhood, my job, friendships, interests all have experienced or gone through a strange induced growth period.

But now my safe haven, my home and existence, the center of how I live, has been altered and thus threw my core off balance. Things have shifted and left me stranded in the middle of the living room not quite sure how to navigate this new reality. The last time I experienced such a strange and unfamiliar space was when I became a stay at home mom, and that, with the birth of our second child, threw me into a year long depression. 

That is my history with strange new spaces that alter my core and it makes me anxious.

When something shifts and exists off balance, new space is created. It has moved, and so now it is not the same leaving emptiness, newness, openness.

Right now, the only thing filling that new space is questions. Questions like, "What am I going to do now? How do I feel? What do my days look like now? Can I really pull of a career as a writer and speaker? How do I spend my time now?" 

Today I can't stop moving because somehow it feels like if I do, I might fall apart. My hands are shaky and I feel nervous. Moving seems to medicate me somehow. Now this isn't a, "I miss my daughter" kind of thing, it feels more like if I am standing on a cliff looking out at a vast open canyon full of wide space.

As of today, I currently stand on the threshold of my dream. (My dream of developing and becoming a stronger writer, speaker, community activist and planner, gardner and food preservationist, artist, quilter and seamstress, wife and mother.) I have time to push into these things in a healthier way than ever before. I have time to develop myself, my family, my career. I don't want to screw that up, and I could. So easily.

If I try and push hard into my purpose for life and my dream and fail, that's ok. For me, I stand behind the truth of try and fail is better than not trying at all. But what I don't want? What I don't want is to waste my opportunity by being afraid of it. By not trying. By excusing my time to other things and never really trying at all. I could waste my opportunity by reading smut novels for days on end and ignoring the potential I have. I could easily distract myself by cleaning and organizing and volunteering all my hours away. And I especially don't want to justify "how hard I work" with then lounging on my couch for hours getting sucked into the Netflix vortex.

My greatest fear is that I am not the great self motivator I want to be or think I can be. I have no boss. My dreams are limitless and I have a bad track record of time management. Now I am left with a thousand ideas and wide open days. 

So if you find yourself in a strange new place filled with wide open spaces and wanting to fill those new spaces with health and good fruit and growth and learning, I am with you. Change rarely is easy, nor is often fun. What I will promise myself is to be patient. To be kind to myself as I navigate new roads. 

And I think I need to stick a post it on my bathroom mirror that says, "Dreams aren't accomplished over night. Keep at it. Don't give up and always pray for wisdom."

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Tags Personal reflection, Motherhood, Professional
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What you will find here.

I'm a gal living in Minneapolis, learning to love, to live, create beauty, and find hope in all things. I spend time as a writer, grower, event planner, facilitator, and creator. This place is where I write about the things that happen, the stuff I do, and my experience on this journey called life.

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