Are you living your best life? I think that is a question we ask ourselves often. I find that I’m always looking at how things could be better. It would be better if I didn’t have to do this, or if I could do that. I’d like to live there instead of here. Maybe if I could do this, then I would feel better about that. But in reality, is the grass really greener? It is an age old adage after all. For a reason, no doubt.

Life can be simpler. I say this for you as well as me.

Facebook memories are a little too telling. Three years ago, today, I wrote this post.

Today I gave my resignation at work. It has been six years of ups and downs, of struggling to find where I belong, and of never-ending fights between what I know to be truth and my terrified mind. The experience has helped to mold me back into the strong woman I had lost. I no longer feel I need to prove myself or be something someone else (or society) believes I should be. Instead, I’m ready to go down the path I know to be right for my life, no matter how scary it may seem. And, with that, I am ready and excited! I will split my time between building and providing services for Forget Me Not Advocacy Group and as Co-Director at Yellow Wood Learning Community. There is a great big world of freedom and peace in my future and I can’t wait to take it on.

It gave me pause when I first saw it. So much has changed since that day. And, me, being one that needs to express my thoughts in words, shared that memory with the attached.

An interesting observation. June seems to be a month of transition for me. This was three years ago. I was excited and terrified and it’s been a roller coaster ride ever since. Two years ago, on this same day, I had to take a job with VIPKID because my plans with Yellow Wood fell apart and Forget Me Not Advocacy Group was struggling to survive. I’ve battled uphill the past two years with teaching midnights, a move for a private teaching job that proved a bust, and trying to piece together FMN, and follow my dreams, with Owl Path.
Ironically, this June proves no different as I’ve had to make another difficult decision to suspend Owl Path classes as several doors closed in a matter of weeks, making it impossible to move forward.
While the last few weeks have been emotional for me, I have no regrets for choosing to make my own path three years ago. May this year hold answers I never imagined and dreams for the taking!

I’ve found myself quite tired the last few weeks. As soon as I made the very difficult choice to suspend classes at Owl Path, exhaustion took over. It is as if the adrenaline that has kept me moving forward toward my goal of succeeding in my endeavors simply ran out.

At first I cried and beat myself up. I cried about how I had lost so much time and money trying to make it work. How I felt I couldn’t give up because I’d put so much of myself into it. I cried because I felt a failure. All of my heart, soul, and hard work amounted to nothing. At least that was how I saw it. But then my mom said two words that completely put me at ease.

“It’s okay.”

That was it. It was okay. It was okay for things to not go as planned. It was okay that I made “poor choices,” or that I had taken risks. Sometimes we just have to accept that this is not what we are supposed to be doing. It doesn’t undermine the journey one bit. It’s simply time to move on to something else.

So, with a loss for where to put my thoughts and time, I found myself quiet. My mind had finally gone quiet. I found myself staring; at my yard, Netflix, or nothing at all. Ironically, I’ve found peace in the quiet. There is something to be said for a quiet mind, for the dripping of a faucet, the tweet of birds outside, and the peace that comes with accepting fate.

And with this morning’s Facebook memory, awareness struck me. I’ve spent three years trying to grow a “business.” And, in all of that focus and drive, I’ve gained control of my life…the control I so desperately yearned for when I left my job.

I may be disappointed because things didn’t go as planned, but I am no longer controlled by abuse, by a loveless marriage, or a job full of individuals who crave control. I am no longer held hostage by memories, anger, or triggers. All of these things have fallen away and I didn’t even notice they were gone until my mind was made to be still and quiet.

It’s time to live my best life, whatever that path holds.