Mother's Day, again...
It was last Mother’s Day that I wrote the first blog post for Living With E.N.V.Y. I wrote about moving across country, starting again and learning to age with grace and wisdom. Over the course of this year I’ve learned to really step outside of my comfort zone and to make decisions that will color how I will lead this next chapter of my life. Having now raised and launched two beautiful young women, I know more than ever that the role of “mother” was, is – and will always be what defines me. My own mother used to say “being a mother is the most important job you will ever have” – and I will go a step further to say that being a mother is the most important and the most rewarding role I will ever have.
I truly believe that no one lives 55 years without dealing with adversity. I know women who hide behind sadness and loneliness. I know women who live with addiction and choose to ‘cover it up’ – and become co-dependent, because being passive is more socially acceptable than being outraged. I know women who stay in a bad marriage because they are too afraid to be alone – and I know women who can’t leave a job that is unfulfilling because they fear it’s all they know how to do or it is what defines them. I know women who don’t know who they are after their youngest child leaves the nest and become depressed and ‘lets herself go’. You don’t get to my age without knowing women who have battled horrible disease, or worse, dealt with a spouse, a sibling – or the most unthinkable – a child, pre-decease them.
Something changed in me this past year. I look at life differently now. I am no longer going to let my life be defined for me. I’m done with being led or ‘allowing’ for my life to be determined for me without firmly holding and steering the helm. I owe it to myself -- and even more importantly, I owe it to my daughters, to choose my life going forward. I want my daughters to know my strength, my authentic self, my desire to create great happiness, health and love in my life.
Next month I will move again, this time to southern California. I am choosing to live and work in an area I’ve always wanted to call ‘home’. My significant other will be with me some of the time, but less often than often with me. I’ll be working for a company that will compensate me properly for my many years of experience and this feels right. In addition, I am choosing to grow my Arbonne business, because after 9 months dabbling at it, I am finally understanding that it’s not about ‘selling’ products, it’s about choosing financial freedom and as or more importantly, it’s about teaching others about how to live more healthfully and then to grow their own empires. This feels right, too.
I am choosing happiness. I am choosing to live courageously – which to me means to live authentically and unfiltered. Being lonely isn’t an option this time. I have myself to rely on. I choose to make my daughters proud. I choose to follow my own heart's desire.
