Life: An Update

Life with twins, a teenager, and a college boy is a heckuva lot busier than I anticipated. So finding time for myself and for writing hasn't been my main priorities. Making sure everyone else is straight has been more important. In addition, I've started working in Direct Sales this summer as an Independent Consultant for Jamberry. It's a growing business for me and I'll enjoy that. I'll save that for another post. What I want to talk about in this post is how important it is to live a full life.

A couple of weeks ago, my second son
was only days from damaging a major artery and bleeding to death (this I'm not going to explain). Then last week I was just a day away from a really messy situation with my appendix. According to the surgeon, I had come to the emergency in time to keep the surgery a clean and simple operation.

I'd been living a life of servitude since returning to work after my maternity leave. I've been a slave to my paychecks, checks that were never enough to cover the financial hurt caused by having to go on unpaid bed rest then maternity leave. I don't understand a system that gives a mother 12 weeks maternity leave but provides only 8 weeks disability pay at 60% of the average income. Mind you, the disability only begins AFTER 30 days of not being at work. So I faced an eviction this February, had been served a 24 hour notice. I begged the courts to stop it on a technicality but I still had all. that. money. to pay in rent-- over $6000. That's where my paychecks and tax refund went.

But, still I owed another $1000 so every month I had to pay another $275 OVER the rent. Which

meant, of course, everything else took a back seat. My car payment fell further and further behind. Every month I had a final notice for my electricity. I lost the cable and internet in my house. My mother was a godsend because she watched my children for free while I was at work. Daycare alone was $1000 for two a month. On a teacher's salary, it became IMPOSSIBLE to take care of my family with a quality of life that wasn't constantly threatened. And so I lived with this cloud of stress. I lived a life that wasn't living.

And last week I was this close to maybe not living at all. When I was younger, my dreams of now were waaaaaay different than what I'm living. Never did I imagine being in so much debt, being so dissatisfied with life, being so far away from my dreams, dreams that I still have. But over the course of life, I've gotten so used to not reaching, to just going with the flow, I don't really now how to begin putting those dreams back on track. Oh I desire it, sure. But talk is talk. I've got to DO. See I've come to realize in that hospital that IF I had died I wouldn't have left behind a legacy I'm proud of.

I've spent my life wrapped in a bubble of hurt and fear that I'm just as guilty

of being my own dream killer as others who have diverted/delayed my plans. I don't want a life of working to a paycheck. I want a purposeful and passionate life, one that affords me the ability to feed my family while feeding my soul. And that begins with me. I've got to DO. I've got to LIVE. I've got to BREAK out of my shell, FLY out of my comfort zone. And that's. so. scary.