I think a lot of times, we believe we are stuck when we need that weird push. Or maybe that is just me. That is how the pandemic had me feeling. I felt like I was stuck, and no matter what I tried to accomplish or what job I applied for, my destiny would end up being retail. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but if you’ve ever worked retail, you might know what my enthusiasm to go back is lacking currently. For a while, I felt like nothing was going to change. Every writing job I applied for either turned out to be a scam; please be careful on Indeed, or I would never hear back from them.
The lack of jobs wanting to take a chance on me was astounding. And while Rev has accepted me for transcription, I still haven’t heard anything since being put on a waitlist. While I know this is a world where we have to be used to rejection, it felt like too much on top of everything else. I began to let it get to me in ways I did not even realize at the time. Hindsight is undoubtedly 20/20 in this concern and quite literally. I’ve always had a desire to be a writer. I’ve known in some capacity I have wanted to write from an early age. I even have a silly superlative award from the third grade where my teacher thought I would be a romance novelist due to a story I wrote.
This story was about Elvis and Priscilla eel and their under water marriage. The crazy part is I found the story a while back while cleaning, and I might polish it up and post it one day. But all these signs have kept coming back to this thought process lately. Writing. I’ve also noticed with an increased amount of posts that I have been gaining followers on here. Hi, by the way, and welcome. The posts have people have connected with in the past and the ones they are connecting with now have me realizing that I have a story to tell. I have so many words that sometimes it feels like I don’t know where to start.
Reigning that in and realizing a spot to start is crazy and scary. Finding that out through a webinar I watched to get an idea of a different path was not what I thought would occur. I watched a webinar about publishing by “Chasing The Bright Side” author Jess Ekstrom. I did not realize the flood gate this would open upon listening to her words. And for the next couple of days, I found myself debating on taking a plunge into her online course. A course I determined I had no money for ultimately. I kept thinking even when splitting it up into her three payments; I cannot afford this.
Then I talked to my father. I told him about Book Pop and how I thought this was the course to help me understand the next part of my life. I’ve wanted a piece of that puzzle for years but have been too afraid or didn’t have enough time to take that plunge. The crazy part of being unemployed, outside of cleaning and looking for a job, is the copious amount of time one has during the day. Time that I did not feel I was utilizing that great when it came to my goals instead of merely finding a job. He simply said, “If you think it will help, you should do it.”
So I did. I figured out how to split the payments up even further and pay about the same amount extra as I would have split it into three payments. However, I designed these upcoming payments so neither myself nor my father, who agreed to pick up slack if needed, will go broke. I realized the day after I talked to him that I used the word can’t too much with my own life. Yes, money is an obstacle right now. Yes, I have to be wise on what I spend it on at the end of the day. That’s why investing in myself is probably the most logical purchase I’ve made since starting this blog forever ago.
Investing in myself is never a bad thing. I even wrote a blog post about it in 2018. The problem then was not as clear to me as it is now. Despite knowing this was true, my mind did not take hold of this notion until last month. So almost three years later, my mind was finally willing to accept something that my heart has wanted for a long time. And let me tell you something, when those things are not exclusive and dancing with each other almost every night in the moonlight, you get into a slump and feel like you’re walking through quicksand.
The past couple of years of my life has been what I want to dub the quicksand stage. I kept walking but, without realizing it, kept sinking because I could not find my focus. I even began to wonder if I suffered from ADHD as my friend began to talk about learning that she has suffered with it her whole life. While I don’t know if that is the case, I think my therapist would have told me in the past two years at some point if she thought I should talk to my PCP about that type of medication. So no, I’m not sure that was or is my case.
Often, we have grief so embedded in our hearts that until we overcome that and have our mind and spirit get on board with each other, those excuses spew from our mouths freely. I think I was on the right track last year when I started saying enough to myself along with my therapist. Hearing that was something I needed to hear ultimately. And while yes, I have gone off in different directions and try to decipher and chose how to keep myself on track, I have taken steps toward that ultimate goal this whole time. The only difference now is that I’m sitting behind a keyboard and truly banging this out.
So yeah. Enough. Focus. Mind. Spirit. Heart. Soul. Those six words are ones I’m going to choose to focus on more often than not. I think in many ways I already have, but ultimately I see them forming some type of mantra in my head I have not quite figured out yet, but it’s lying in wait like a lioness stalking its prey. All I know is that until it’s evident to me, I’m going to keep typing to figure that out.
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