Self Care and the Technology Refugee.

I am a technology refugee.

It is embarrassing. I wanted to be more together than this, at this point in my life. And I am equally happy to let those comparisons get lost.  They get in my way.   I am beginning to live a life for which I was made. 

I am starting over, again. After five businesses - two as a Landscape Architect, and 3 as a Techie CEO - my knack for the bootstrapping creative digital cartographic concerns was skilled (but not, alas, for convincing money to invest.)   I was, until recently, a business owner, a bootstrapped CEO and a 'day late and a dollar short' entrepreneur.   I have tried very hard to live another person's life.  It was a struggle even for my work-a-holic self.

It was a life that my Diva-CPA mother wanted.  "Have your own business. Its something you can count on."  As a 50's woman she was ahead of her time and got a bum deal.  But she was right, of course.  She was just not right - about ME.  My grieving of her passing has allowed me to parse a lifelong identity crisis and resurrect a more authentic self - one who I came here to be

It isn't as if I didn't always know I was an artist.  I just didn't believe it was enough.

My horoscope chart apparently confirms it in a significant way:  I am an artist, a writer and a minister and I have some catching up to do.  I am a chaplaincy student who supports herself now by driving people around under the unilateral authority of the furry pink mustache.

And there is no where I would rather be than Lyfting in San Francisco. Seriously, everyone I have picked up in the last 4 months has been creative, thoughtful, talented and sharing a belief in possibilities.  They are not angry - the angry people and the grumpy people take cabs.

I actually feel sorry for the cabbies.  They have a hard job.  I am not a cab.  I am part of a connected community - a sharing community.  Most of my riders sit in the front seat and after our fist-bumping meet and greet, they tell me their  story.

I read the day - each time I drive by reading them.  Is San Francisco having a good day?  I will know after a few rides.  Whether you take Lyft, or a competing ride-sharing service or a cab, if you live in the City you are part of a collective, ethereal fabric happening this moment.

I have a story to tell about that moment - the one that just passed by.  My story is also about reaching for a dream - maybe it is yours and maybe it is not  (sometimes it is hard to tell.)  My story is also about the self-care needed to sustain your dream until it can grow up (or you can.)  It is also about driving for Lyft in the most beautiful City in America: San Francisco.

Everybody has a story.