10 weeks

So I have 10 weeks left in my job.

10 weeks of being CEO.  10 weeks of being the boss.  10 weeks of "the buck stops with me".

10 weeks of stretching myself into new shapes. 10 weeks of being pushed and prodded and manipulated into new ways of being in the world.  10 weeks of winging it and working it out as I go along.  10 weeks of feeling like I have to know everything and 10 weeks of feeling like I never know enough.

10 weeks of feeling drained, empowered, cynical, hopeful, driven, burnt out, meaningful, pointless, motivated and utterly peeved...

10 weeks of feeling that my life has a purpose and a routine - all-be-it one I have frequently wanted to chuck in the nearest swamp.

10 weeks to find a way to walk away feeling like I did all I could.

10 weeks to find a way to walk away not feeling like I leave behind a house of cards, and 10 weeks to accept that I cannot control what happens after I walk away - in fact there is not all that much I can control between now and then either.
3 weeks of active management left, then 7 weeks to wrap up all the lose ends and produce a mountain of words on paper.
Words on paper will be my legacy.
Words on paper which, in my optimistic moments, I trust will translate into making the world a little easier for some people.
Words on paper which won't change a whole lot in an obvious way, but may just be foundation that makes the difference between dark and light for some people.

10 more weeks of putting words on paper... before my next adventure into arranging different words in different orders on different bits of paper.
I must hold up my hands and blindly hope it all matters somehow.

10 weeks until everything changes again.

what did I do this week...

So its wednesday... and I pause to reflect on the week... what have I achieved this week?
Hmmm
A new 3.1 million dollar funding package for work to decrease gender based violence in Fiji...
A new partnership with save the children to provide specialist counselling services to kids who have been victims of sexual exploitation...
A new partnership with the National Council on Prevention of Suicide, and Fiji Police, to improve methods for targeting suicide prevention strategies to the people who need them most...
A new agreement to be the lead/convening agency of the working party to establish minimum standards and strategies for delivering mental health and psychosocial support in disasters.
A new agreement with Unicef to support our school based counselling programs
A new funding agreement to provide water filters to flood affected families
A new beginning to the total restructure of the way we are core funded over the next three years.
A new manager of counselling services
New branch managers for two of our branches
A new opportunity to work with one of the other major NGO's who have refused to communicate with us for years...
A new way of approaching the asia pacific sex work agency symposium we are hosting

Hmmm - and thats on top of the normal day to day work of being a CEO.  Not too bad for a Monday and Tuesday...plus 8 hours of driving to and from Suva...

Oh and two new chickens and a new first cucumber in my garden!

No wonder I am a bit tired.
It must be the cucumber.