Tales of a Hot Mess Mama

What do you want to be when you grow up?
I have asked my kids this over the years and their answers have stayed pretty consistent.
We have a future park ranger in our little animal lover and a chemist in the little one. We have tried to explain that the desirable result for experiments is not generally an explosion, but he remains optimistic that it could be.
But what about me? I never really got around to answering this question and now that I have arrived at that mid-30 range, society says I should have.
I’m supposed to have my ducks in a row, but my ducks are all over the pond and I think one may be trying to talk its way into a bar.
The pressure of this expectation has been weighing on me for years but hasn’t led me to change my “go where the wind takes me” ways.
I guess these ducks are just going to stay free-range, baby!
My most recent, and maybe my long-term-who-knows-pursuit is photography.
I decided to start a business a few months ago and I am letting it slowly evolve. For now, it is practice with friends, loads of studying and I am loving it.
At the most recent session, I got too excited and started jumping from rock to rock to get better angles.
In hindsight, I realize how stupid this was considering my lifelong struggle with coordination, but at the time I was blissfully carefree and wasn’t thinking about silly things like safety.
And that is when it caught me, the dead palm frond.
I fell hard — face first — directly into the dirt. When I got up to assess the damage, I realized I had a busted lip and I had been dangerously close to busting my head open on jagged rocks. It was an overwhelming combo and it took a minute to regroup.
But I did. And I pushed on.
I had a vision for what I wanted, and I refused to let a few bumps and bruises deter me. Fortunately, I had a good friend with me who fully understands my stubborn nature. She told me I was crazy but never tried to stop me.
As I nursed my wounds when I got home, I dissected the experience to find what lessons were hidden in it. I know, it sounds very motivational speaker, but some of my most positive life changes have come from some pretty awful events.
Here are the truths I arrived at and maybe reading these will negate the necessity for you to take a header off some rocks, but I can’t make any promises.
Sometimes there are risks in the pursuit of dreams but pursue them anyway.
There will be obstacles and intrusions that trip you up. I’m lookin’ at you dead palm fronds of the world — don’t let them stop you.
Surround yourself with people who allow you to be your authentic self, even when that self is a little nutty.
And most importantly, if you fall flat on your face, get up, dust yourself off and keep going.
To all of you who have stopped dreaming because the pressure to settle became too great, I see you and I understand.
But it’s time to bloom out of that tiny bud my friend — the world needs your light shining as bright as possible right now.