lonely nights...

This was the view out of my hotel window my last night alone in Vancouver.

I'd just wrapped episode 325 of the series that's kept my nose to the grindstone for a year and three months.  I'd walked home in the rain (you can just see it in the shot), dog tired, totally spent from six days of intensely focused writing and directing.

Was about to go to sleep and looked out the window.

Thought I'd capture it.

Those empty windows across from me?  Stared at 'em all year.  Our hotel deal meant that they'd put me in the least desirable rooms--'cause they weren't otherwise booked by 'paying guests'--so I always ended up looking the same way.  Didn't matter much to me since most of my days in the suite were spent at this here computer typing away, my mind far adrift in the fields of imagination as I worked my butt to the bone trying to pull blood from a stone.

Anyway, I was glad to put an end to those lonely nights.

Much of my last year and three months have been spent alone.

In fact, let's try and tally it up--just for fun.

52 flights.

104,000 miles travelled.

260 hours spent on a plane.

91 days away from my wife and kids (it's amazing they still remember me).

25% of my year spent alone (and 25% of my wife's year spent alone with FOUR kids under 9)

91 egg sandwiches, cups of 'pike place' coffee, and cups of strawberry yogurt.  "You're Welcome" Starbucks.

91 falafels.  Yes, I eat the same thing every day when I'm away.

325 episodes.

162.5 hours of television produced.

2,600 'monologue' segments written.

5,200 minutes of 'monologue' put out there into the World with my thoughts driving 'em.  (that's 86.6 hours of my thinking out there in the public consciousness)

325 episodes X eight airings per day X 5 days per week = 13,000 airings X 1,000 average viewers per episode = 13,000,000 impressions I've made on Canadians over the past year and three months with this one series.

Needless to say it wasn't just 'me' doing all this work, there were many people involved in making all this happen, but this is my blog and I'm reflecting on this personally hence all the 'I' talk.  But I digress...

Pretty sobering stuff.

Pretty humbling stuff.

And the crux of it all is that I haven't felt like it's 'enough'.  

And I don't mean 'enough' in terms of my satisfaction.  I mean 'enough' in terms of my spending all that time and effort on something that was less than as focused as it could have been on the 'thing' that I feel I've been put on the earth to do.

So what do you do then?  Do you think of thirteen million impressions as a waste of time?  Do you tell your wife she spent 25% of her year alone for nothing?

Certainly not.

You keep in mind how hard it was to do what you did this past year and three months.  You stay mindful of the fact that, even when you can't see the end from the beginning, even when you don't quite know why you're being led along the path you're walking, there are things going on beyond your comprehension or control.

You hold to the fact that good is coming to you and going from you as a result of spending your life in the service of your family, your sense of calling, and your community.

You trust.

And when the season comes to an end--ideally well before it actually ends--you start keeping yourself very open to and aware of what might be coming next.

Then, when it comes, you embrace what comes.

Again, you trust.

And what's funny is that, as you begin to find new vision, you 'see' that there is as much--if not more--uncertainty in this new chapter as there was in the last.

But what's cool, and important to keep in mind, is that all those miles you've travelled?  All that work you've done?  All that time you've spent alone and thinking?  All the times you've had to rise to the challenge and 'perform'?  Well, those moments are now part of your track record, part of your legacy.  No one can take those things away from you because they're in the past.  

You can now move forward knowing that everything you've said and done in the past year and three months is part and parcel of what you'll do with the next.

You know that those lonely nights weren't for nothing.

T