A beginning

I suppose that I could start with a review of my entire life, with particular focus on the mental exercises and general upheaval of the past few years. I think that would be more than a little tiring for everyone involved. Besides, I'm not sure that I want to attempt that in a single session. Suffice to say for now that the following is an adequate, if categorical, description of me:

• I'm 44, which I was recently reminded is essentially mid-life.
• I've been "married" to the same man (Dan) for 16 years.
• We live in a quiet middle-class neighborhood in College Park, Maryland.
• My immediate family are all fairly close by and my parents still live in the house I grew up in. Everyone from Dan's side of the family is in New York or New Jersey, which is still pretty close.
• I work for a publisher as a project manager for internal IT projects. This job uses virtually none of what I studied in school (BS and MA in Geography). While it's financially rewarding and "challenging" it sometimes makes me feel like I'm in the wrong skin at times. I think maybe lots of people feel that way at one time or another.
• I was raised Methodist, drifted away from church, then discovered the Episcopal church as an adult. My church community and my faith are both big parts of my life.
• For the past several years, but particularly for about the last two, I've been considering seriously whether I believe I have a call to ordained ministry. "Call" is most definitely a churchy word, but I'm sure that will be addressed in detail in some future post.
• I've been an artist my entire live, but have only been willing to call myself by that name for the past year.

These two big things--art and church--are the contenders in the tug-of-war that is my life, or so it seems at times.

That's a pretty concise summary. Perhaps too concise, but it sets the stage on which the story can unfold.