"Just What I Needed"

Yesterday, as I stood in my kitchen a great lightening bolt moment came to me for a post, I intended to write it down but was lost in the chaos of leaving for the water park with the boys. So a great story is somewhere in my kitchen for me to catch one day. But always with something to say or share here is an inspiring and uplifting book I came across by fluke and truly struck a chord within me. I read this great book, from cover to cover, on a ferry ride across Lake Champlain the other week titled "Just Who Will You Be?" by Maria Shriver. I seen her on Oprah on the odd day I lay in bed in the afternoon. She spoke about her upbringing in the Kennedy clan, her commitment to contribute to the family legacy and striking out on her own in a career as a television journalist. Then she got to the part that made me sit upright and listening more closely. It was at the time her husband became the Governor of California and her world started to crumple. She was fired from her job and felt completely lost for the first time in her life. No longer was she something of substance. Her children reminded her she was unemployed and just a stay at home mom and in public, she was the First Lady of California and so on. With no career she felt identity"less". As a driven person most of her life, she was now fifty-two, label"less" and lost. Then her nephew asked her to speak at his graduation, after numerous refusals she relented and spent sometime trying to figure out what to say. In that time she discovered she was finding out about herself too. She asked "Just who will you be?" to the graduating class but more personally to herself. After fifty-two years, she was surprised to asked a herself that very same thing. There is a time in every one's life they ask that same question, I felt elated that I was only 43 years old and had a good ten years on Mrs. Shriver. However, fundamentally, I was awed that she felt that too. I spent the last couple of years asking that question to myself, albeit, in other words. She to needed to reassess her life just like me. What a powerful and thought provoking read for anyone in the midst of a career change or life change. Although, I felt okay questioning my existence and pretty darn sure at the time on the ferry what I wanted to do, her book gave the "more power to you" feeling and it was "Just What I Needed".