Kick Start

It has been an interesting week. An interesting two years, if I really think about it. But we’ll just stick with the week.

I always said I would never be one of those people who settled. I knew far too many people who spent the bulk of their waking hours like hamsters in a wheel, doing work for which they little passion. For some, this did the trick. It allowed them to keep a roof over their family’s heads and food on the table, and maybe spend a week each year at the beach. A few even chose wisely enough to have time and energy away from their hamster wheel to pursue the things that brought them joy. Hell, a handful of my friends even earn their livings doing what they would do even if they weren’t getting paid for it.

Well, when I said I wouldn’t be one of the settlers, I lied. To myself and maybe even to people who believed in my ability to be more. But it has been myself I’ve been hurting the most. Because not only did I settle, but I didn’t choose wisely. I landed myself in a job that required far too much time and mental and emotional energy to leave enough of me left over even for dreaming, let alone for trying to pursue those dreams. I landed there, and even though I wasn’t quite happy with the view, I settled. For years.

If you’ve ever not had money, you know how easy that can be. You find something that allows you not to have your heart get caught in your throat every time a bill comes in the mail. That feels good, sometimes even good enough that you can convince yourself that you are happy.

I envy self-starters, the people who know what they want, won’t let their lives turn out any other way, and go for it. I used to think I was one. As it turns out, though, I’m one of those people who needs to be kick started.

Fate, or God, or something in between them must have recognized that. Because over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten my kick start. Just to make sure I got the message, it has been delivered right in the butt. After two years of being told and making myself believe that things would get better, I finally saw the flashing neon sign that said “Sweetheart, get real. This is gonna suck forever. Why are you clinging to it and giving it everything you’ve got instead of using what you were given to be what you want and maybe actually do some good in the process?”

The details of how that message has been delivered may not even be important. The point is, I finally got it.

So for the last few days, I have been working hard. And for the first time in eons, I’ve been doing that work for myself. I’ve polished my resume. I’ve explored all sorts of possibilities. I’ve sent out a few inquiries. With each little thing I do, I feel the mental wall that has kept me from creating words for over a year now start shifting. There are only hairline cracks in it at the moment. But the cracks are there, proof that the wall can come down if I let it.

The things that have happened were bad. The outcome, not so much.

I see glimpses of a teenage girl, a girl who had said since she was an elementary schooler with a notebook and a pencil that she was going to be a writer. I see her tall and lanky and awkward and sun-browned, poring over college catalogs and daydreaming. I see her laughing and alive, surrounded by friends who all had dreams of their own, outside somewhere on a muggy summer night where lightening bugs flickered and mosquitos bit and no one had school or work in the morning.

She’s me. And she’s in the mirror now, just a shade sometimes, but there. Her eyes shine behind those in the reflection. The lines beneath and around those eyes, thin markers of laughter and tears and far too many hours doing things that made them burn with exhaustion, they don’t hide her anymore.

A kick in the ass can do good things. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.