Starting Over

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Well, yesterday was my last day on the old job. Training for the new position begins Monday, and I'm taking a couple of days off in between to recharge my batteries. It's tough to leave my comfort zone, and I'll miss all the familiar faces. But that division is closing, so there was no point in staying until the end.

I am grateful and happy to have another job to go to. And I'm looking forward to learning about a new facet of the business. But you know how it is with a new job, having to prove yourself anew to yet another group of strangers. So I started today vacillating between melancholy, trepidation, and excitement.

Enter The Universe. I'm standing at the bathroom sink brushing my teeth when motion in the back yard catches my eye. Peeking out from between the blinds, I find a scene from a Disney movie in progress out there: The deer are dancing! They're bounding around the yard, running full-tilt circles of the field, jumping the pasture fence and back again, racing just for the fun of it. A pair of twitterpated robins flutter around in the grass, a hawk circles the woods, and I can hear the barred owl calling. How can you not laugh with all that going on?

Downstairs for breakfast. I flip on the TV and catch the big finish number of Shall We Dance, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Fred pauses in the amazing dance sequence and looks out of the tube, right at me, and sings:

Drop that long face. Come on. Have your fling.
Why keep nursing the blues?

If you want this old world on a string,
Put on your dancing shoes. Stop wasting time.
Put on your dancing shoes. Watch your spirits climb.

Shall we dance, or keep on moping?
Shall we dance and walk on air?
Shall we give in to despair?
Or shall we dance with never a care?

Life is short. We're growing older.
Don't you be an also ran.
You've got to dance, little lady. Dance, little man.
Dance whenever you can.

Yeah, Fred old buddy, you're right. Time to put on my dancing shoes.