{"id":13696,"date":"2012-04-13T13:32:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T19:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelswithmiranda.uskeba.ca\/?p=13696"},"modified":"2016-09-17T21:10:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T18:10:50","slug":"final-thoughts-on-my-year-in-lethbridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/final-thoughts-on-my-year-in-lethbridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Thoughts On My Year in Lethbridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like I am on schedule to pull out sometime tomorrow morning. I have decided to meander through southern Saskatchewan rather than race to the border as I am leaving a couple of days earlier than planned. I&#8217;ll therefore be overnighting at the <a href=\"http:\/\/travelswithmiranda.uskeba.ca\/?p=12340\">Walmart in Swift Current<\/a> tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been asked a number of times about how ready I feel about leaving, with the meaning being &#8220;How sick are you of Lethbridge?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The answer is that I am not sick of Lethbridge, but I am ready to go. I know that what I needed to do here has been done and it&#8217;s time to move on to new challenges. My being here has not been unbearable and if I needed to stay a while longer, that would be fine. But I have come to a point where I feel that I would gain nothing more here.<\/p>\n<p>As I <a href=\"http:\/\/travelswithmiranda.uskeba.ca\/?p=12340\">wrote at the beginning of winter<\/a>, I very much believe that we all have a life plan. I can always tell when I&#8217;m following that plan or not; the further I get from it, the more chaotic my life feels. When I am firmly on it, like I am today, I am awash with a feeling of serenity. When I ignore the niggle at the back of my brain, as I&#8217;ve done several times in the last three and a half years, I feel uneasy, worried, and out of control.<\/p>\n<p>My time in Lethbridge has allowed me to gain professional growth that I truly believe I would never have had in my old life because I wouldn&#8217;t have believed myself capable of the challenges of management. When I last saw my boss, he confessed to me that it was only the office manager&#8217;s urging that allowed for me to take charge of the apartment complex starting in late June. He trusted her that I would grow into the position. I feel that it took me till well into November to really feel comfortable with the job. But he said that he knew by the end of July that I was going do great in the position! I appreciate so much that I was allowed to make mistakes and that my judgment was trusted. My feelings for this company are difficult to put into words. I am just so happy to have worked for it for the last nine months and am still in disbelief that I have <a href=\"http:\/\/travelswithmiranda.uskeba.ca\/?p=13333\">such a wonderful tangible reminder<\/a> of how I felt while working for them.<\/p>\n<p>The personal growth that came from this job is also immeasurable. I was finally able to let go of my need to be liked and that enabled me to be respected. What an adventure and a half that was! I have finished a rough draft of the little ebook I&#8217;ve promised about my winter adventures and I hope to have it out shortly!<\/p>\n<p>The idea of Travels with Miranda isn&#8217;t just of physical travels, but also of a journey of the soul, of a half-baked person seeking to find her true voice. So often we get lost in the minutia of daily life and others&#8217; expectations for our life that we never learn to grow into our person. I am returning to Quebec very confident and ready to hold my head high against those folks who measure success in financial statements and who told me that I was throwing away my life. Oh, I did do that, and look at the life I am now living!<\/p>\n<p>I have a ton more stuff to move back into the rig and an apartment to clean, so I&#8217;m off to do a final burst. Departure tomorrow is scheduled for 11ish, but no sooner than when an order of Jody&#8217;s muffins arrives. \ud83d\ude42 I&#8217;ll post before I take off, then it will depend on cell coverage in Saskatchewan, which is spotty at best.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It looks like I am on schedule to pull out sometime tomorrow morning. I have decided to meander through southern Saskatchewan rather than race to the border as I am leaving a couple of days earlier than planned. I&#8217;ll therefore be overnighting at the Walmart in Swift Current tomorrow. I&#8217;ve been asked a number of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1041,632,1226,635,11,5,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alberta","category-canada","category-lethbridge","category-north-america","category-personal","category-rving","category-travel","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}