Welcome, once again, to my blog. It feels like a stage, so hello everyone. Thank you for coming.
I want to say a word of encouragement to everyone, who like me, works a day job while your creative energies die on the vine.
I think anyone and everyone with a creative bone in your body, a secret talent, a hidden initiative, a supressed dream or goal, or a sidelined hobby can relate and should, somehow, unite. We all go to work every day, truding through the minutia. Working and wondering, what's the purpose?
Some people are blessed. You have followed your hearts and somehow blazed a trail where you fulfill your giftings and creative callings in your day-to-day jobs.You write, paint, direct, design, control and command. Kudos to you. You are the few and proud who are rewarded financially and in every way for your efforts. Or maybe the financial reward still eludes you but at least you are fulfilled. Either way, good job. You are now quietly dismissed from this blog, because this one is for the frustrated, the down-and-out, the monkey-suit clad day worker, the work horse . . .
I had a good start to a creative, fulfilling career. I went to college, studied journalism and English literature, graduated with honors and got a job writing and editing. Then I had my beautiful baby girl and quit after 5 years. I thought I would write from home, which I did for a while. I thought I could get back into the swing at any time, any day I wanted. Life is never that simple.
I went back to work after two precious babies were born and a husband had left. It wasn't exactly back into my dream job. It was survival and has been ever since.
I have tried to get a job at my old alma mater. But now I am too old. They want the young, beautiful girls to represent the college and recruit the new students and develop alumni relations. I even went back over there to at least have the career counselor look at my resume and help me strategize my next move. She looked at it with a completely dead expression and told me I've got nothing.
Can this be true? Do I really have nothing? I have raised two beautiful kids, age 19 and 11. A daughter who wants to be a missionary and save the world and is well on her way to doing it with straight A grades, friends who are movers and shakers and intellectuals, and two world travels under her belt. A son with a tender, gentle spirit, an amazing intellect, a way with kids and animals, lots of friends and good grades. I have the most wonderful husband in the world, who loves and adores me. Who knows how to love. Who enjoys my company. Who talks to me!
I've got a few cool things on the ole resume, too, even if not all within the same industry. There's a little writing and editing, some Facebooking, some advertising, some customer service, there's the incredible retail business my husband and I owned and manager, and succeeded at for a few years before the tide turned and we lost everything. There's the home healthcare industry, the hospitality industry, survival of the most difficult GM in history industry . . . it's all there. But according to the counselor, I got nothing.
You know what, we'll see about nothing. If you're out there and you can relate to the twists and turns of life, if things do not always turn out just as you planned, if it seems nothing is ever handed to you, celebrate! We are the ones with the story. And somehow, little by little, I am going to tell that story. I know it will encourage someone. I know it will touch someone's heart.
If you got nothin' here's to you!
