Priorities

The last couple of years have been eventful, to say the least. Finally, now that foster care is behind me and the kids and their family are doing well, I feel like it is time to focus on my own life again.

As much as I didn't enjoy being tossed around by the winds of fate for the past two years, I have to admit, the ball being back in my court is a little bit intimidating. Whatever happens now will happen because of choices I make, not choices I'm forced into by circumstance (or so I hope, anyway). The scary part of that is what if I make the wrong choices? What if I fail? What if, at the end of my three year plan, I am still unpublished, no closer to buying a house, and still stressed out and chasing my tail?

This might sound strange, but the idea of success is just as frightening as the thought of failure. It is hard to believe I can achieve it, sometimes, and even harder to believe I could actually sustain my vision of success. What if I achieve it, only to have it all fall apart later? Whose fault will that be, hmm?

These are the sort of thoughts that have been running amok in my head these past few weeks. They are the thoughts that can derail you from getting where you want to go. Luckily for me, I'm too stubborn to stop now. Yes, there is a chance I won't be able to hit the mark, and if I do I might well mess it all up at some future point and find myself  back where I started. But succeed or fail, at least I will know I had the courage and the discipline to try.  If I can put everything I've got - literally - into helping other people get where they need to go, I should be willing and able to apply that drive and sense of purpose to my own life, too.

I've been telling myself I can't do this, I can't do that, because right now I have to be here, the kids and their family need me to do X, Y or Z. The truth? I've been using them as a crutch, as an excuse to avoid stepping out on my own again. The kids and their mom are doing great. They still have challenges and hurdles to overcome, of course, but the worst is behind them. Whatever happens next, I know their mom can make her dreams come true. Now I need to go find out, is the same true for me?

Frankly, the situation is critical. I'm 46 1/2 years old. If I don't get out there and build some stability, if I don't put my dreams at the forefront and pursue them with everything I've got, I may not get another chance. I don't need to be rich, I don't need to be famous. I do need the financial anchor that owning a home represents and I want desperately, deeply and passionately, to find out if I have what it takes as a writer.

In the next few weeks I'll be sharing my next steps and some updates to my three-year plan. In the meantime, leave a comment sharing what success looks like for you, and what you're doing, or have done, to get yourself there.