Remembering 9/11

This day marks the day that I tail-spun into a deep depression over a span of several months. I didn't know why at the time, but I remember pin pointing it to the fact that before this day happened, life was merely an act of going through motions and I was not really living out my true purpose.

I enjoyed teaching, but it wasn't my passion. It wasn't until I realized why that I knew things HAD to change. After 9/11, the sudden realization that my world could come to an abrupt end was life changing, because I had never given myself the opportunity to do what I desired to do the most. I wasn't going to blame my circumstances, my upbringing, or even people for not doing what I loved, because ultimately, I realized that I had the choice to do something about it. Blaming other external circumstances was making me a slave to it, granting it and others the power to affirm in my mind that I would never be able to succeed with what I wanted to do. 

At the source of it all was a fear of failure, but I needed to take a leap of faith and not let that grab a hold me. If I was going to fail, it was going to be on my terms, and I wasn’t going to give anyone else the power to have that over me. I knew then, that no matter what it took, despite the obstacles, I was going to do everything I could to create opportunities for myself to do so, and that's when I began to draft the story line for Heart of the Jaguar. 

It's been a rough start. There have been many obstacles, and after fourteen years, I'm just barely starting to see that small, beamed light of success at the end of the tunnel, miles away for me to grasp; but every time I want to give up, 9/11 comes right around the corner, just in time to remind me that life is too short to spend it going through the motions and that I'm blessed to live in a country where I have the freedom to make my own choices and blaze my own path. But most importantly, I have the freedom to do what I've been wanting to do for so long: write!

photo credit: covermyfb.com