Anyone who has lost touch with old friends and then circled back with them years later is often taken aback. Not necessarily at how they have aged but at how grown up and mature their kids have become.
This is a nod to Susannah (nee Margison) Everett. A fraternal twin to Gordon and born within a few weeks of my own son, Cameron in 1986. Her parents Jennifer and Douglas are longtime friends.
Lest I bury the lead (and pretty much already have), Susannah switched tracks after law school and decided not to pursue law as a lifetime career.
She opened her own business as a coach to other professional women advising them on how to manifest their dreams. I can think of no-one better suited to that calling.
I’m sharing this post that she recently published. I often do that when I come across someone else’s words that I wish I had written.
The words and sentiments Susannah shares are strong both in vulnerability and wisdom. Similar to Susannah, I left a law career “to do my own thing.” The parameters for women to ascend in the profession of law are tight and restrictive (especially for older women as I was when I was called to the bar).
To me, it meant the road ahead in law was fated to be nothing else if not dull and predictable and not terribly satisfying. The cachet and status of a law career often reads better on paper than it plays out in reality, except for a favored few.
Susannah left law awhile back and married a doctor. She is a beautiful and happy young woman doing her own thing.
And she is clearly wise beyond her years. As you will glean from her words below. Not a bad outcome for Doug and Jenny’s kid. 🙂 The same kid I last saw when she was wearing diapers and a onesie.
She done growed.
A few years ago, I felt rejected and that rejection felt MONUMENTAL.
I was wallowing in what I’d lost. The fun I would have had. The experience I would have gained. The lost financial upside.
Then someone said something to me that felt like the pick-me-up my heart (and ego) really needed. Want to know what it was?
“Susannah, this is the BEST thing that could have happened to you”.
You know what? That comment became like an omen. It lit up something in me that was determined to get over the pain of the rejection and capitalize on the opportunity it presented.
The reality was that (now lost) opportunity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be when I sat down and thought about it.
I was settling.
I had been “playing small”
Better things were not only out there, but attainable.
And the longer I was focused on the lost opportunity and tried to get it back, the less space I had for something better.
As soon as I started playing with the ideas that “rejection is just redirection” and “if it’s not this it’s something better” and that “life doesn’t happen TO you, it happens FOR you”, magic (it felt like magic) started happening.
The bigger, better, more perfectly suited opportunities started showing up.
While it’s important to honour the feelings that come with rejection, it’s also important to keep them and the situation into perspective.
What if being rejected was the best thing that could have happened? What would be possible?
You owe it to yourself to find out.
Expressive Compulsive 