Come As You Are: Season 2 Episode 17

Happy Sunday Lovecats! It’s MAY! 🌸

I’ve been thinking a lot about my expectation for a “happy ending” (the part where I’m over the hardship of the challenging present moment and long for the destination instead of the journey)… and how I’m losing patience in this (what feels like EXTENDED) time of uncertainty and find myself anxiously wondering where and when I’ll get to the point where I can look back and say that everything I went though in my 40s was worth it because LOOK WHERE I AM NOW… because I am certainly NOT there yet. In fact, I was in a FAR better LOOK WHERE I AM NOW place when I was 40 than I am now, which might be the hardest part about it all. Knowing that at one point in your life you were FAR BETTER OFF and the choices you made during that moment created the FAR WORSE predicament you now find yourself in, leaving you with mountains of regret and the ONLY hope you have to NOT end up bitter and angry for the rest of your life, is the idea that IT WAS ALL WORTH IT. Because otherwise, WTF?

Even though I was also in a time of uncertainty after my separation but before my divorce 8 years ago to the day, and possibly in a very weak moment (emotionally), I was very confident in my place in life, in my self, in my abilities, in my finances and in my overall life. Sure, I was starting over because my marriage was over, but I was still in full blast in most other areas of my life. There was ONE area that was uncertain, but I was pretty rooted and strong in the rest.

I could feel my blogging career at the time changing, but I was still very certain about at least 80% of my life. When the opportunity to invest in a bar/restaurant came along, I thought it was the next best direction to go in my life where I’d learn new things, meet new people and gain new experiences, while also growing a lucrative business. BOY WAS I WRONG.

And here I am, 8 years later, in a similar feeling of uncertainty YET, I’ve also lost everything that I considered my certain reality, from my most recent past endeavors, to my previous past self and career, it’s all gone. I have started over in every sense of the word, with basically, nothing.

I thought I had a platform in which I spent years building that would at least act as a stepping stone to a new beginning, but either I’m not stepping in the right direction or the step doesn’t exist anymore, so to speak, because I don’t feel a sense of direction pointing one way or another.

I guess it’s always hard when you decide to go in completely different direction than from where you came, and I think I did that when I moved forward with a bar/restaurant and away from my blog 8 years ago, but now, moving away from that and diving more into the most artistic era of my life, finally giving my inner child the voice she has always wanted by making music, and finally committing to writing in new ways (that I’ve put off for years), feel like the riskiest and most vulnerable things I’ve ever done in my entire life.

And I think that it feels like the scariest road to take for the same reason I’ve never fully driven down it before; because these are the things I want to happen most (the deepest and purest and most authentic dreams) and if I can’t make them happen, if I can’t manifest my truest and most authentic dreams and self… THEN WHAT?

It’s easy to blow off failure (or, lack of success or mediocre success) on things you don’t care too much about. Failing at things you’re not emotionally invested in, even if you give 100%, doesn’t sting as badly at failing at the THINGS YOU’VE ALWAYS SECRETLY WANTED TO DO… Right?

I think this is why so many people only talk about living their dreams and never fully actually TRY or commit to doing the things they know will truly make them happy because the overwhelming fear of WHAT IF IT DOESN’T WORK OUT? is too much for the heart to endure.

But… WHAT IF IT DOES? What if it does work out? What if you do succeed?

My heart has been beaten and shattered and broken and shriveled and shrunken over the last 8 years and I think, at this age, I have no choice but to take the only road I have yet to travel because I have nothing left to lose.

And maybe this is what they mean when they say you have to hit rock bottom before you get your biggest breakthrough. And this is the hope I cling to… the hope that I will have that happy ending to give me reassurance that what I went through wasn’t all for nothing.

xoxo …love, Maegan 🤍