Where I work, what I do

I started a new job on May 1, and I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to tell you how that’s going. So I thought I’d use today’s post to catch you up.

I am a public information specialist for a local government, Campbell County. I am the assistant to our public information officer. I work in Rustburg, the county seat, in the Haberer Building.

The building I work in.

I am enjoying my job and am happy for the transition from the newspaper job to what I’m doing now.

I do a lot of different things, but here are a few:

·         Update the county website

·         Update the employee portal (intranet)

·         Make graphics for the website and portal

·         Write public service announcements and media advisories and send them to local media

·         Interact with local media and find information for them

·         Help in responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests

·         I do a lot of editing

·         Take photos at county functions

·         Help with making presentations, crafting messages

·         Update the Public Safety Facebook and Twitter accounts

·         Lead the Web Content Authors group (those in other departments who update their pages on the website)

We are in the midst of transferring to another web platform for the county website. It will be so much better than what we have now. Right now, some people in other departments update their pages on the website. Once the changeover occurs, I will be doing the bulk of web updates.

I do a lot of writing, communicating, and creating with this job, and there is a lot of variety to each day. So I am enjoying it.

A view of some of the Campbell County buildings in the government complex.

I’m in the county administration office with my supervisor, the county administrator and his assistant, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, the staff attorney, and the director and the assistant director of Public Works and their assistant. It’s a good group of hard-working and dedicated public servants.

I don’t miss the newspaper at all. I’m working full time where I am now, but the hours are regular and I rarely have to work nights or weekends. I work 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., so I’m home by 5:30 most evenings, which is hugely important to me. I don’t feel like I have to constantly be tuned into what’s going on around me in case there’s a story I need to cover. That is so good for my anxiety.

I feel very fortunate to have such a wonderful supervisor and to be doing work that I enjoy.

Friends, what has been your favorite job? Or do you think it’s still in your future?

Community

The road from Altavista to Evington is a narrow, sometimes very curvy two-lane highway, 10 miles of country road.

For a long time, I was never actually sure when I’d arrived in Evington. It’s more of a zip code than a defined place. But the longer I live in this part of the county, the more defined it becomes.

I visited Evington Monday evening to cover a community meeting for the newspaper. One of my regular beats is county government, and one of the issues facing government is how to help people in the county who are experiencing well water problems.

The county has come up with some options to consider, and the meeting was to get some early feedback from residents who would be affected by any decision made.

I’ve already done several stories on the issue, and I looked forward to attending this meeting.

But it wasn’t just the meeting that drew me. Part of the reason I looked forward to going to Evington was because I enjoy the drive.

I was behind the wheel Monday night, so I couldn’t take many photos.

But I noticed the hay and corn fields, the way the land rolled along in hill after hill.

I noticed the round bales of hay out in the field or, in one place, lined up beside the barbed wire fence that ran parallel to the road. I thought of my fellow bloggers who are busy raking and baling hay.

I noticed how the early evening sunshine still lit most of the fields, while the trees at the edges were growing darker green as the light faded.

I arrived at the intersection where the Evington post office is and turned left. That’s where the road becomes very curvy, almost turning on itself as it weaves down to the railroad crossing. 

Then I was at the building where the meeting was held.

Field in Evington, Virginia

I was there for over an hour and a half, but the time flew by. I listened to people express their concerns, for themselves and their neighbors. I saw people from all walks of life, from different backgrounds, discuss common concerns.

I felt community.

One of the blessings of my job is the way I have become more of a part of the community. I’ve met people I never would have met, chatted about the mundane, asked questions about the serious, struggled to capture the essence of a story for the readers.

I’m an introvert. I tend to shy away from anything resembling a crowd. I have depression that sometimes makes me question my reason for living.

But times like Monday night remind me that I’m part of a community—really, more than one community—and part of my purpose lies in those communities. That’s a comfort.

It was a comfort, too, to step outside at the end and look at the beautiful land around me becoming dark. I caught a photo of the red rail car that sits beside the long graveled driveway and then drove back along the same narrow roads. I couldn’t see the fields as clearly, but I knew they were there. I knew the people working hard behind those fields were there, somewhere.

And I went home.

A mission and a vision: Writing out the meaning of life

Do you believe that you have a purpose in life? Do you have a mission?

Have you put that mission into a written statement?

I’ve been searching for my purpose, for my mission in life, for years. It even became an OCD issue for me.

I wrote countless “mission statements,” then decided that they were wrong. Then I wrote some more. And my OCD drove me to doubt them.

I prayed about it, talked with others about it, read books about it.

Why was this so important to me?

I know that you don’t have to identify your mission to live a good, meaningful, giving life. I know you don’t have to have a mission statement to find your place in the world.

But being who I am, I wanted to articulate the ways that I could make a positive difference. I needed a guide. I needed to be able to state, if only to myself, how I would find meaning in my experiences.

Recently, I sat down and asked myself the very basic questions: What is it that I really want to do in life? What is it that I’ve always wanted to do?

And the mission and vision below came out of that.

My mission is to live a life of connection.

My vision—what I want my life to be about—is to communicate our interconnectedness and help others feel less alone through encouragement, education and storytelling.

Those statements reflect the kind of person I want to be, the way I want to treat people and all creatures, what I want my writing to do, how I want to act day to day. When I die, I want to be able to say, That is what I did.

What is your mission?

Does OCD have a purpose?

I remember a time when I didn’t obsess about sin, dirt, and danger, when I didn’t wash my hands until they were raw and pray constantly in attempts to rid myself of that sin, dirt, and danger.

According to current theories of the causes of this anxiety disorder, I was probably born with the tendency towards having it. So I in essence never lived a pre-OCD life. But memories from my early childhood remind me that I did live a short time without obsessions and compulsions.

Have you ever read articles about people who suffer from a particular disease, who seem to think they were meant to have the disease so they could help others with it?

I am fascinated with that idea.

Behind the idea that a person is meant to have a disease is the notion that there is a higher purpose, a higher power and a plan at work.

I’ve been obsessed with finding out my own purpose for years. I’ve written dozens of “mission statements” for myself. None satisfy me for long. None adequately address the part of me that identifies with OCD.

Though I have experienced many good things and many successes, OCD still plays a big role in my life, though sometimes it’s subtle.

I don’t know if I believe God or a higher power created me to have OCD. I believe in God, but I don’t understand Him to be a person-like figure who had me in mind when He gave out the OCD.

I’m comfortable with the mystery of not knowing for sure who God is, because I know I’ll never know for sure during my time on earth. It’s one of the few mysteries I’m comfortable with.

That comfort did not come easily, but that’s for another post.

Even if a higher power did not “give” me OCD, I have it and it has affected my life to the point I cannot easily imagine life without it.

So what am I supposed to do with it, and the depression and general anxiety that have been along for the ride for most of my life?

One of the quotes I included in my last post, the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, speaks to my belief about what I’m supposed to do with my life: serve others.

How I’m supposed to serve and help others is not always clear to me. And I definitely need to improve in how much and how I serve others.

But the meaning of my life will be in how I use what I have—OCD and all the rest—to help others and realize who I truly am, a creation of the Divine.

I treasure the memories of my pre-OCD life. For much of my life, I have washed and counted and checked and sought reassurance. I have wasted time and water and soap and talents. I have forgotten who I am and have identified with OCD strongly enough to push me to the brink of suicide.

But as a friend recently posted about herself, I am what I am.

Do you ever wonder about your purpose in life, and how your OCD, anxiety, depression or whatever your challenges may be fit in?