Monday, June 17, 2013

Life, Love and Changes

Well, folks, it’s been a while. Again. If you’ve read my blog regularly in the past, you might be wondering why I seem to have dropped off the planet in the past year. Trust me, some days I wonder the same.

Simply put, life has been busy ... But a “simple” answer just won’t do when you’ve been MIA for a year. So let’s look at what’s been happening, and where things are headed ...

exclamation markLife: I’ve spent most of the last year working on “figuring out my life”. At some point not too long ago I realized I wasn’t happy with the direction my life was taking. So I moped, stewed and worried for a while. That didn’t help (surprise!), so I decided to take a different approach and try actually doing something about it. I made a few changes to the who, what, where, when and why dynamics of my life.

Guess what? It worked! Life is fantastic and, to be honest, I don’t really know how I could possibly feel happier than I do now. I'm sure I will, because things just get better every day, but I feel so good that I'm not sure how it's even possible ....

exclamation markCareer: Despite my dreams of making a full-time career out of all this sex stuff, that’s simply not realistic at the moment. While I could talk about sex ed for hours on end, I have yet to find someone to pay me large sums of money (or at least a liveable salary!) to talk incessantly about sex ed.

If you know someone who fits the above description, please send them my contact info! In the meantime, however, I’ve been putting a lot of work into building my career as a Child and Youth Worker (CYW). The more experience I gain, the more I feel that I made the right choice in becoming a CYW. It’s a skill set that comes naturally to me (much the way educating others about tough topics like sexuality comes naturally!). 
I enjoy working with children and youth, and I definitely like the challenge that comes with working with people.

exclamation markLove: Yes, it’s true! I am head over heels, hopelessly in love. Not only that, but the man I’m hopelessly in love with is, without any shred of doubt, my life partner and soulmate. Before I met Paul, I had started to wonder if there was actually such thing as an “ideal partner” out there for me. While I was doing a great job of figuring out what I want, need and expect out of a partner, I wasn’t sure all those things could actually exist in one person. That’s until someone introduced me to Paul: his gaze met mine, and that was it ... we had fallen in love. Every day since has been better than the one before it, and we couldn't be more thrilled or excited about having found one another.

(More on this in a later post!)

exclamation markDirection: Although love, career and home have all come together to create a great deal of happiness for me, there’s one thing I’m desperately lacking right now: direction for my business. I have so many great ideas -- workshops, lessons, programming -- and many great connections -- but I’m lacking a sense of clear direction as to where all of this is headed. Perhaps a simpler way of putting it would be to say that SexEd Central is experiencing growing pains. A big part of the lack of direction is that I simply don’t have time to “do it all” anymore. Establishing a business, creating curriculum and lessons, blogging regularly and updating content on the website are all time and energy consuming activities, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done AND live the rest of my life.

I would like to grow beyond the sole topic of “sex ed” and into more of a comprehensive, “health-focused” direction. I’ve developed and given workshops on other subjects, and I am sure there’s a way to tie it all together. Mental health, for example, is something that affects all of us but isn’t talked about nearly enough; I’d really like to do something about that. question mark

This has plagued me for months, but there’s no point hiding it anymore. Instead, I’m putting a call out there for other like-minded, health-focused, friendly and outgoing people to reach out and connect with me. I am asking you to share your ideas, feedback, skills and talents with me; let’s collaborate to create something really awesome.

I am seeking people who can help me establish focus and direction for the business. I want to find people who want to get involved in many different ways: writing posts and content; developing workshops; facilitating lessons; establishing community partnerships; branding (establishing a logo and an image), and spreading the word are just a few items on my "to do" list.

If you've read this and are thinking "I could do that!" please let me know. Contact me today and let’s chat about what awesome things we can make happen by working together. This is a great time to get involved in doing something really unique and exciting, with lots of potential for growth and room for creativity.

I’m looking forward to connecting with you.

In the meantime, I'd better get back to that career-establishing stuff. I have to be in Kitchener soon for a physical demands test ... at which point, with any luck, I'll officially be a CYW for another school board. Woo hoo!!

Cheers to a FANTASTIC day!
Candice