I’ve come to the realization lately that I have become much less fearful than I was of late. Not that I was ever necessarily afraid of things in this world, I had no great phobias. Rather I was afraid of many things in life that make this gift that we were given at birth worth while. I was afraid of all changes, good and bad. I grew anxious at the smallest of experiences that most people wouldn’t think twice about. Driving to new places would through my stomach in knots for hours, meeting new people rendered me speechless (which if you KNOW me is almost an act against God!). I was living my life very sheltered, very safe, very routine. I took jobs that were the easiest and most mundane I could find. Why? Probably because they were easy, probably because I didn’t have to think about them while I was performing them. I don’t really know why. Maybe I didn’t think that I was any better than a job that would pay me $9.50 per hour.
Then something changed. A year of whirl wind activity, unexpectedness, and unpredictability changed my life forever. January 27th, 2003 I met my husband (yes I do actually remember this date because I flew him out for a visit), this was not the first time we had met, but it was the first time we met “with intentions”. I credit my husband with constantly pushing me outside of my comfort zone, even the first time I went to pick him up at the airport was an ordeal for me. Hello! I had to drive to the airport, park AND wait BY MYSELF. Seriously it freaked me out. In May of 2003 we randomly decided to get married, by September we were hitched. This is not a time frame that I work best in. Everything happened so fast, but for some reason with Matt taking the lead everything fit nicely into place (I’m sure I have my in-laws to credit with MOST of this).
It was from the moment that my husband suggested we get married (no romantic proposal here! I got my ring in the parking lot of a Home Depot!) Everything in my life changed and I was forced out of my little box that I had made my home for the last 21 years. I boarded a plane with two cats and moved my life out to California. I stayed in the home of my in-laws, who in reality I didn’t know all that well, and started work in an office for the first time. Matt and I frantically searched for an apartment and found one the week before we were married. I fought my way through learning everything that I possibly could about my job. The women at the office were like a clique of popular high school girls and usually didn’t say 2 words to me. Maybe it had something to do with the Big Boss being my father in law or maybe they were just seeing if I was worth it. I heard constantly that I wasn’t as good as the woman that I replaced and that she could do my job 10 million times better than I could. I ended up crying a lot those first few months (as bitchy as I can be, I’m a soft hearted soul).By this time Matt was in Grad School full time and working only 1/2 days most times. I was moved to take over his job and finally started to integrate with these women (though I have to admit, I never fully was allowed in). I have to tell you, that first year of Marriage were poor. I don’t think you would really ever understand how poor unless you have lived it. Matt and I made in that first year of marriage $29,000. Combined. Now that is $537.07 per week. Our rent was $950. That left just over a grand (minus taxes) for us to live on. Did I mention that Matt was in grad school…for ceramics & sculpture? Did I mention that he would come home and tell me that he had dropped another $250 that we didn’t have at the Home Depot today? We were poor. If not for the saving grace of my in-laws (whom have really become my second parents) feeding us and letting us do laundry at their house (4 days a week mind you) we would not have survived.
Now at this point I will tell you that I made Matt make a decision. Either get his teaching certificate and start working, or get a job. I will tell you that I was pretty resentful and bitchy about it, but Matt seems to have a memory that I was very sweet about it & that I was right about everything. From that point on life has been treating us very well and that we have been offered a lot of great opportunities. We have been very blessed that we have managed to land on our feet more times than not but I will not tell you that we haven’t cried, bleed, and agonized every step of the way.
Popular culture seems to be telling us that opportunity just knocks & hands you everything you need to prosper. Maybe that is why so many of us do not ever live up to our potential and so many of us are bitter that opportunity has never knocked. Just from my experience I will tell you that opportunity doesn’t knock, it rings your broken ass door bell & if you weren’t randomly passing by the door & catch a glimpse of it standing out there you wouldn’t know it was there. Opportunity waits for no man and it doesn’t care if you are scared.
The amazing part about an opportunity is once you take that first step toward reaching for something better, something higher, something you never thought you could do it’s so much easier to continue walking and continue to excel. And looking back you are amazed at how far you have come. Matt and I started off poor as snot in California, we are now in Ohio and I’m trying to come to grips that Matt and I are making more money now than my parents did when they retired. We still have so much further to go, and another opportunity has cold called us so we are returning to California. Yes it’s scary, and sometimes we look at each other and admit that neither of us knows what to do, but none of that is stopping us.
The job that Matt took was managing the opperations (his offial title is VP but we always laugh about it since we are so few here!) for his father’s company. One that I have also worked at for the last 4 years. Those women that wouldn’t let me join their clique are long gone. Their vendors they wouldn’t let me talk to are now all mine and it’s routed back to me through competing leasing companies that my boss, the owner of this company & one of the men I look up to the most, has said that I’m (ME!) the best program manager he’s ever met. Weird.
What is the biggest obstacle in your life from letting you really excel? Why is this an obstacle?
