The Big Picture

I’m an hour past leaving my new friends and extended family, and only 30 minutes done bawling my eyes out. It’s hard to type with the tears welling now. I love these people (most of them anyways wink wink) and to have shared such an amazing amazing amazing experience with them makes me grateful for whatever forces got me here in the first place.

The program is over --- at least the formal, work deliverable project teamwork part of it. But the friendships are not and I will work my hardest to keep it that way.

This entire past week especially has been a blur, with lots of work, research and stress trying to get everything done, little personality traits that we have tried to ignore over the first three weeks coming to a head, but at the end of it all it was mostly lots of love. We finished our assignment, and I am proud to say that our client-peep Sam seemed very happy. Out of our research, presentation and recommendations she took 12 different action items and told us that we have no idea the difference that we have made and the impact our work will have for a long while into the future. She could have just been being nice, but I choose to believe her. But, whatever we have done for her, the local community or the people we have worked with has been returned 100 times over, so it seems like they got the short end of the stick…. No amount of work we could have done would be nearly enough to equal what I have gotten in return.

Scrambling on Tuesday night to pull three weeks of research, analysis and interviews into a final report and conclusions, I finally got it --- THE BIG PICTURE. Sitting in my bed with jammies it suddenly all made sense, and I understood why she had given us the assignment that she did, and why what we are doing here matters. It all came together for me all at once and I just GOT IT – why we are here, what we are trying do, what it means to the local community. And I realized that every day we struggle with finding time to get things done, deadlines, financial problems, health problems, work stress, family stress, relationship stress and in doing so we miss the LIFE BIG PICTURE, which is friends and family and people and relationships are a lot of work, and living, breathing and spending every single waking moment with 11 people for four weeks straight is a lot of work, but if we stress over it without stepping back we will miss it --- the people that touch you and the experiences you share together are all we have at the end of it all, and I can’t be more touched and moved by this wonderful new extended family that I welcome into my life.

I’ve been so busy here this past month without literally a single moment that is just for myself, and – to be honest – it’s been hard to find time to reflect on everything and everyone at home that I’ve missed. But I’m on my way back and can’t wait to see you all, because my heart is filled with love and my eyes are filled with tears of happiness and all I have is XXs and OOs for you all.

Much love.


The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.