Joy

You know the 24 hour rule?  When something good happens you generally have about a 24 hour window to celebrate, before you go back to being your normal anxious self.  (Actually, I'm speaking for myself, but I have read this.)  Right now I need to jump up and down and sing and dance and do whatever it is that makes me happy, because I have just had a positive experience.  

The past few weeks has been an extremely challenging learning experience.  I am beyond grateful to have been working on a project for the United Nations that is focused on lifting the poorest people around the world out of poverty, to bring them access to food, clean water, good sanitation, health care, education and more opportunities for gender equity.  This is no easy task, the U.N. has been focused on these goals, called the Millennium Development Goals, for ten years.  Do you know about them?  Not enough people do.  There are five years left in this project and they have to take everything they've learned over the past ten years and push forward on these goals. There have been some positive results, but right now the focus is on the challenges ahead, on the countires in the world that have not benefited enough from the MDG's.  The tasks ahead are enormous, but many of them are so doable. Mothers shouldn't be still dying in such enormous numbers in childbirth.  HIV/AIDS should not be transmitted from mother to child anymore.  Decent health care can be accessible all over the world.  We can put pressure on countries where conflict is still going on and civilians are being killed and raped.  We can make sure that everyone has access to clean water and nourishing food. 

The meeting I had today was about clarifying the language for the short film we're making, while the director and her crew is out in the field working on one part of it.  It was a positive meeting and I felt good about my relationship with the people at the U.N. Development Program.  I have no idea if I will have an opportunity to continue working with them in the future, but what a gift it's been to have had this assignment.  Not only is my brain crammed with information that I never knew, I have been tested day after day, dealing with more stress in a work situation than I've had in a long time.  I handled it.  Not perfectly, not even close, but I did a very good job, given how demanding it was. And it's not over.

We still have a film to make.  And it's due soon.  The conference is September 20-22 and many people have to sign off on it before it gets shown.  Will it work?  Will it all come together in time?  Stay tuned....and I'm going to enjoy the next eighteen or so hours before the fear and anxiety returns.