Just got off the phone...

...with the VP and my boss. Interesting little chat about my list of demands.

Basically, VP said that he couldn't approve or reject any of my ideas but would elevate them to the President and Chief Educational Officer.

I'm not sure if this was supposed to scare or encourage me. (I think that VP was expecting me to back off some of my demands because they were going to get exposure at the executive level. I didn't. na-na-na-na-boo-b00.)

But then he said that he'd be speaking to the President and CEO and wouldn't forward my actual demands to them. (To me, that means that he's afraid to tell them what I want...and wants me to have to do it.)

He did say that there were proponents of the proposal that he didn't support. (like the pay raise and time off)

My boss kept asking specific questions about my time and then judging them, subtly. "So you would spend 60% of the time doing this, and 40% of the time doing this. That means you'd be in the office all the time?!?!"

"You wouldn't travel at all?"

"Doesn't this sound like an administrative position to you?"

VP said that he sees me at a crossroads. He talked a lot about my "threatening to resign" and asked me what I would have done differently in the beginning of the week if I had it to do over again.

It was good to honestly say that this has been a big learning experience for me. And I did express that had I known there were so many options for me within the company, I may have let VP and Boss in on my unhappiness before I resigned. Fair enough.

Then he started talking about how he and Boss see more potential in me than I see in myself. I stopped him dead in his tracks and said that I strongly disagreed. Fuck you, buddy. I'm not your freaking daughter. Would you say that to an older male salesperson? I didn't think so, you patronizing fuck. (Can you tell that pissed me off??)

I told him that, put simply, I was interested in what options the company has to offer me. I told him that I wasn't threatening to resign. Resignation happens when all options have been explored and none seem to fit. That's not a threat - that's just the way it works! He agreed.

So we got off the phone, thirty minutes later, with nothing decided except for the fact that I'd be hearing from senior executives this afternoon. Fine.

In my meeting this afternoon, I got upset and stumbled through my share time. I think I hit on something last night talking to my husband.... I am feeling like there's a war going on between two "Ryans". The first Ryan is Corporate Ryan. She is successful and business savvy and makes a lot of money. She's aggressive and plays with the big boys and likes the competition. She also suffers from perpetual anxiety and needs long breaks often in order to recharge.

Then there's Spiritual Ryan who doesn't know what she wants to do, but really knows that there's something exciting and wonderful and serenity-giving out there for her. This Ryan wants to be connected spiritually to humankind and wants to explore her healing capabilities through massage or something similar. She wants to spend her days being calm and serene and even quiet.

I feel like Corporate Ryan and Spiritual Ryan are duking it out. On the one hand, Corporate Ryan makes sense to everyone around her. She's a strong career woman who makes a lot of money. Corporate Ryan is well defined, fits in to the world around her, and has a comfortable place in society. Parents are proud of Corporate Ryan and she herself knows that she will enjoy success and lots and lots of money forever.

On the other hand, there is a huge pull towards Spiritual Ryan. It's a quiet, ever-present, umbilical tug. It's who I really want to be. But allowing myself to explore Spiritual Ryan means giving up security both professionally and financially. Spiritual Ryan is totally undefined and scary. Spiritual Ryan is such a departure from who I am now, that it is terrifying to imagine what the journey to explore her will be like. It will mean risking failure (which is very hard for me to do), financial insecurity and sacrifice, and a total lifestyle change.

So when I freak out about this job stuff - it's much bigger than just whether or not the company accepts my demands. It's really about which Ryan I make the choice to explore in this next portion of my life.

What I shared in the meeting today was that the scariest outcome I can imagine is that the company comes back and accepts all of my demands. What THEN!?!

The other scary outcome is that I actually resign and sever ties with this company in order to pursue some venture that has no definition, no syllabus, no course of action to follow.

I'm trying to surrender all of this to HP but holy fuck! It's a lot!!