The Best Is Yet To Come

I have a chalkboard that hangs over my head while I sleep that is the full width of my bed. From time to time I would write meaningful words that I wanted to somehow absorb telepathically into my mind while sleeping or at the very least I would see and subconsciously start to believe over time.

The last phrase I wrote was something I felt had been impressed upon me about a year ago: 

The best is yet to come.

I didn't know exactly what it meant. I didn't know when The Best would get here. I simply heard those words in my mind and caught glimpses of it wherever I went. So, I wrote it down in hopes that over time I would unravel the mystery, be able to look back, and say "A ha! I see how The Best got here!"

The adventurous part about this mystery phrase I read every day I wake up and every night before I go to sleep is that the best is always somehow still coming. In some strange way this mantra has changed my perspective over time and made me appreciate when The Best is happening right that very moment and not always dreading the current place I'm in, constantly in agony over when the next big thing will happen.

That being said, I am waiting for another big part of my life to begin or happen, as it were. But for now I find myself being content to know that The Best is both here and still coming. My reasoning being that if I heard that The Best is yet to come a year ago then The Best must be here now.

And maybe The Best has been here all along.

Being The (Brave) Boss Is Hard

Honest Post About Being Self Employed and Bravery

I had a weird morning yesterday that started with me waking up in tears and slowly getting dressed and putting on make-up while intermittently sniffling and crying. I have been running at full steam for the past several...months, I guess. And yesterday it finally caught up with me.

Let me back up and paint you a full picture of me: I am a futuristic, ENFJ, Type A, Know-It-All, Perfectionist who rarely fails at anything. And when I do fail it comes as a huge disappointment and I'm way too tough on myself for not being awesome 24 hours a day.

My weird morning is starting to make a little more sense now, right?

I'm still exhausted and feel oddly teary (even though I really don't have a reason to be sad and yesterday was a fairly relaxing day). But I am realizing something....it's tough being the boss! And it's harder still to be brave all the time, in charge of other people, having all the weight of a business on your shoulders, and trying to shove it out of your brain during the off hours when you're supposed to be relaxing and resting.

When I was a kid my family had dinner together most nights and I remember my self-employed parents not being able to talk about anything BUT business at the dinner table. I asked my mom one night why they couldn't just talk about something else for a change. Her reply, "This is what we do all day long. If we stop the business stops. Besides, we couldn't push this out of our minds if we tried."

I am now learning she was right in every way with that response. I can't turn my mind off of business stuff no matter what I do.  

I'm exhausted by it, but it's all I can think about and talk about these days.

I could be out having the time of my life with friends and then I'll suddenly remember something that needs to be added to the to-do list and will frantically type it into my phone before my brain forgets that passing thought. And then, inevitably, I'll remember another thing and then another and another....

I recently won an award in my field for being an innovator which was wonderful. But if I'm being honest, I really wish that award had come with some sort of therapy or free pass to exhaustion rehab. Some days it feels as though the pressure is mounting and more things are added to my plate than I can handle. Other days, I feel like I'm on top of the world, the business is the best it has ever been, and nothing can go wrong.

Being self employed really has been the best thing I've ever done. But being self employed has been the one thing that I haven't been able to perfectly master and I'm learning (probably the hard way) how to let go of being perfect, fear of failure, and trying not let this super hard job trump the fact that this is the absolute best career I could possibly have right now.

Enough WIth The White Horse Already!

I never believed in The One. Whomever you choose to marry....well, you make each other The One.

Wise words and a huge relief for this City Girl that had been inundated with messages of Finding The One and Searching For Your Soulmate since she was a little girl.

I recently sat down to lunch with a friend and poured my heart out about love and relationships, marriage and other scary grown-up topics, and verbally processed through major life decisions that had been swirling around my thoughts. And the wisdom bomb she dropped was a huge relief.

Choose wisely whom you intend to be Your One and Only, but know that whomever you choose may not look exactly like The Knight in Shining Armor.

Some men are just men, not constant heroes who respond to my every whimper and sigh. And that's more than OK.

It was good to hear that the one we all look for – as well as all the other things in life one hopes will happen – may not look exactly like Prince Charming on His White Horse, but could instead look like real life.

And real life may actually turn out to be better than the fairy tale.

The Place Where I Belong

There's something so delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never can tell quite where they'll take you. Mine took me here. Where I belong. -Miss Potter

There's no name I'm aware of for that space in between letting go and holding on. It's that space of Just Being. That place where you allow things to grow and move. That area that allows a life to breathe. 

I moved back to The Beach 3 years ago next month. I had no plan for the first time in my life. I figured I would move back and the right opportunities would present themselves. I also knew on some level that I needed the space, my own space, to create and live and be.

I gave myself that luxury of living in that space of Just Being and I dare say I never left. 

And I didn't know where my plan of having no plan would lead me, but here I am.

I own 2 businesses, I teach 2 classes at the college level, and I write my own column for a local newspaper. I never thought in a million years that I would do any of these things. None of these things had ever been in any original plan I had drawn up for my future self. Not to mention the fact that I have been dating someone quite seriously for the past 6 months that I also had no plans to meet until much later when all of this career stuff could run itself. (As if it ever could.)

And yet this place of Just Being has turned out to be just right. It has turned out to be the place in which I belong.

Five Things I Would Tell My Younger Self

I recently read an article about the ten things some famous photographer would've told his younger self when starting his career and it got me thinking about the things I would tell my younger self....about life.

I know I had older wisdom circling around from time to time, but I wish I would have dived into the resources I had at the time and truly listened. And I don't know if being confronted with an older version of myself would have made any difference, but here's what I would tell my younger self given the chance:

1. Make friends with the older crowd and learn from their mistakes.
   This doesn't have to be a mentor type of thing, but a friend kind of thing. I think there was this all-too-formal set-up that had the stench of religion on it that made me veer from seeking out relationships with an older crowd. And now that I'm becoming one of those "older" people that has a thing or two to say about life, I find that it's not a religious thing–it's a life thing. It's a fantastic and amazing resource just waiting to be tapped into.
2. Let your freak flag fly.
   Don't try to fit someone else's mold or try to live up to someone else's standards. Make your own rules, live your own life, in the way you think it should be lived. Because trying to be perfect according to some altruistic set of rules will eventually lead to a massive meltdown and set you back to square one on the path of rediscovery all over again.
3. Be content.
   Wherever you are, at whatever stage of life you're in, be content. Choose joy instead of sorrow...or moping. Choose to believe that your life can and will be abundant and awesome. Don't fall into the trap that life is boring or a grind or that some things will never happen for you. Keep your head up and your eyes open to the good things in life. It's meant to be lived with a smile on your face!
4. Listen to your body.
   It's not lying when it says it's tired. Don't push yourself to do so much all the time. Learn how to live the balanced life and give yourself permission to take days off just for the hell of it!
5. Ask questions. All the time.
   I have found that my lack of being willing to speak up at certain times has robbed me of potentially great opportunities and some wisdom. I've also realized that in not asking questions, mainly about God and who that might be, I held myself back from a wonderful part of the life journey. I could have delved deep and enjoyed the richness that is the spiritual part of my life for many years in my twenties if I had only been willing to ask those questions that I thought were maybe innappropriate or not allowed. Such rubbish! It's OK to ask questions, many of them! Sometimes  over and over again. 

I'm sure there are other things I would tell myself, but I like to imagine this conversation with a time limit....say the amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. And I don't know that this is even the best stuff to be said. But I can see, looking back, there was a pattern that I think most twenty-somethings fall into: worrying about what everyone else might say or think about what they are doing.

For me, it was a pattern of fear. 

And while I may not be completely fearless in all areas of my life, I can only hope that my passion for living a life of true freedom will continue all the way to the end. 

This Not Knowing Has Its Charm

I plan. I make lists. I make lists about making lists. I plot. I scheme. I will shed the brightest of lights on every last detail and nuance of every situation I enter. And I always have a plan to somehow master whatever I put my hand to.

You can't do this in relationships. Not possible.

I have a new mantra I'm trying out that basically entails letting go, ditching The Plan, and just letting whatever will be be. And I am taken aback at how quickly I've adapted to my new life slogan. Yet again, I find myself in a relationship, but this time with a new game plan in that there is no plan. I have no expectations, no designs on the man, and oddly enough no worries.

My heart is a kite tethered by a string of wisdom.

It can go where it pleases, but is ultimately guided by the experiences and smarts I've gained in my 32 years of living. And this not knowing of what will be has its charm. This not knowing is OK with me. Every once in awhile it may just be alright to not know every detail of every little thing that is yet to come. It may just be the right thing to be in dark for once.

Little Signposts

Sometimes, people like to bring things up from my past that really needn't be brought up. And sometimes, because I'm totally cool like this, I'll later hop on Facebook and end up comparing myself to someone or 500 someones just to drive those negative comments home to myself. And then I'll inevitably fall into a slump that deserves a blanket, big couch, and pint of ice cream to complete its pitiful look.

Sometimes, I'll do this at the least opportune moment so that I can feel awful when I'm, let's say, teaching a classroom full of students and can't possibly have the meltdown or pity party I want to have right at that moment.

Sometimes, I forget who I am, what I've accomplished, and what really matters and will ask the heavens in a shaky little voice, "Why am I here?" 

The question ridiculously implies that I've had no control whatsoever over my past decisions and that some Greater Being just plopped me down into a completely foreign place. And I think we both know that's not true.

And it's on days like those that I am grateful for little signposts.

The night of my stupidity and comparison relapse I decided to take my dinner break in the classroom. Almost all the students headed to the cafeteria and only one student stayed behind, pretending to not be hungry while surfing the internet. I began to chat with my left behind student about his low grade in my class and told him he was too smart to be failing when he turned around and with big eyes began to pour his little heart out to me about his personal life.

I let him talk and talk until he ran out of words about his hometown, how much he missed his family who moved away to the other side of the world the minute he left home, and how scary real life is for an eighteen year old kid. We talked about my first time away from home and how frightening it was to only be two weeks out of the house when 9/11 disrupted the world's plans and America's comfort level. I told him how it's always rough to be someplace new for at least the first six months. And he smiled. And he told me that I was right, he really was too smart to be failing my class.

He smiled. And he knew he was smart.

That was all I needed. I knew why I was there. I had always known, but sometimes I just need those little signposts, those little messages that tell you you're right where you are supposed to be and all is as it should be.