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The Gift That Fuels Our Joy

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2009

In an aromatic restaurant filled with the fragrance of baking cheese, the extended table of women spread out on either side of me like the wings of an enormous bird. The 20-or-so of us had just completed a long-planned project and we were celebrating success.

Although we had volunteered for the same committee, I was the new kid on the block and so most of the faces were unfamiliar to me. What bound us together was a commitment to this community project.

In such a warm and cozy setting, talk quickly turned personal as each of the three women sitting near me began to share experiences. After the what-did-you-do-in-your-work life discussion, came the how-did-you-come-to-choose-it exchange, quickly followed by the what-did-you-get-out-of-it conversation.

I think this kind of talk may be peculiar to women. I can't for the life of me imagine a table of men who are relative strangers to each other having this conversation. One woman had begun her life's work as a radiology technician taking CAT scans, another as a teacher and the third as a nurse. All had transformed themselves as they aged.

The fourth participant didn't interject much but served as the "confirmer," nodding in appreciation and/or agreement as the talk became philosophical. What each of the foursome had in common was a late-life realization of what they had been born to do, an "ah-ha!" moment that had drastically, amazingly, unexpectedly changed the courses of their lives and brought them to the work some were still engaged in. Each transformation had been precipitated by the desire to continue to work usefully and earn money.

Divorce had been the catalyst for one change. College tuitions for children had been another. Disenchantment with a toxic work environment had been the third. And the results were nothing short of amazing. Each woman had transitioned through the same stages of evaluation. I'm not happy doing this. I need to change my work. What do I love to do? How can I do that for a living? The exploration had been painful for each because it involved giving up work that they had spent much time and effort credentialing themselves to do.

The radiology tech became a seamstress and started her own business making customized drapes for interior designers, weaving her own fabric, and reveling in the joy of doing work she had been "born" to do. "Even as a little child, I loved sewing," she said. "I watched my aunt do it and learned from her. I used to make all my clothing. And I love working out of my home."

The former nurse had also begun her own small business after recognizing her childhood special gift of being able to bring order out of chaos. She spoke intensely of getting satisfaction, fulfillment and great joy from her work.

I was the teacher, sharing how I had taught English for a year, stopped for almost 20 years to raise a family and then gone back to work as a fledgling writer, doing formally what I had done since I was ten years old. Using writing to move up a ladder of administrative responsibilities, at 50 I came to realize that writing was what had always given me joy, and I lay aside administrative duties and focused on work that paid me to do what I loved.

What interested me, fascinated me and amazed me about our conversation was that each of us could trace our skills back to earliest childhood. Each of us had come upon a moment in middle age when we recognized gifts we had been born with and tasks that fulfilled our long-held creative needs. Each of us had then found work that allowed us to tap those resources. Each of us had discovered the joy of what in today's world of self-examination and analysis is known as a "flow" experience: the high that can come from doing what you feel born to do.

The end of dinner meant the end of conversation as the group of women began small going-home activities, gathering belongings and delving into purses to pay the bill. In the afterglow of intimacy and connection, the four of us looked at each other and nodded in agreement when someone said, "I just have a feeling that we are not alone in the discovery that the seeds of our joy often are sown very early in the days of our childhood."

Judy Kramer can be reached by e-mail at JudyandOz@tampabay.rr.com.

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