SUCCESS?!

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of blogs about success and how it is rated in our lives and how it is looked at by others. I think that success should only be rated by you yourself. I know, I know but what about how others see us and measure us? Do we have a nice car, a nice house, designer clothing and do our children have all the latest gear and electronics? We stress ourselves out every day wondering how we are measuring up in the world.

This past year and a half have taught me many lessons and one was about how I look at myself in regards to success…. I grew up in a very small town in West Virginia where everyone knew everyone’s business and I knew I wanted something more for myself when I grew up. I wanted to live in a big city and have a career that would make me rich lol! Like all of us I had a long journey to get to where I wanted to be but I knew with every step with every new stepping stone I would definitely get to where I believed would be a successful life.

After High school I was forced to go to a college that was close to home because my parents refused to help me go to West Pointe. I did everything I needed to do but they refused so I started school at a small town college and my first semester was good but second semester I moved into an apartment with my roommate from the dorms because had a bed bug infestation at the dorms and we wanted to get as far away as we could but that meant using the money from financial aid to pay rent and somehow I don’t know if the money went to my parents or I just didn’t get it but my parents said there was no money for me for rent. I started working at a restaurant that at night turned into a club and me and my roommate were the hype girls. We would get on the bar in our leather pants and dance and stomp on the bar and well if you ever saw coyote ugly it was a lot like that. We made great money but it was at the expense of my grades. I was struggling trying to keep up and that’s when I received an invitation to go to my fathers in Northern Virginia for the summer. I am a fly by the seat of your pants type of person and I decided to just drop/fail two classes and took the finals in the ones that I was passing and packed up pink ford probe with me, my cat and all my possessions and headed to VA! I loved it down there so much I ended up staying for 7 years and didn’t go back to school. I think I was too young to really appreciate all the opportunities Northern Virginia had to offer. I got married, got pregnant and then divorced in those 7 years and ended up moving back to that little home town I talked about earlier. At the time I didn’t realize how much a failure that was to me but it was probably the best thing I ever did.

While living in the little town I got remarried, went to school, got a degree and landed a great job, oh and had 2 more babies. I never stopped dreaming of going back to live in Virginia and making it work this time and taking advantage of all the area had to offer and even more so now that I needed to worry about good schools for my children.

I don’t know if being able to follow your dreams would equal success in your mind but in my mind that is the definition of the word. I was thriving in Virginia working at a job a loved and had a great house on the beach and just loving life. I was able to provide for my family on my own since my husband wouldn’t work and was able to give them all the things they wanted. Yes, I worked 7 days a week most weeks but I loved going to work. It wasn’t work for me and that to me was what success is all about.

Now, failure to me is having to lose all of that due to one man, one minute of his poor choices and having no one on my side to stand up for me and having to ultimately defend myself.

Failure is letting this man beat me mentally and financially. He has no reason to have to worry about the coincidences of his actions so why do I keep holding him responsible for everything I lost? Having to run back to that little town again with my tail between my legs and licking my wounds.

I have decided to finally put all this behind me and just start over but with that being said I am scared to death to move back to Virginia and fail again. How many times can you fail before you give up?

What really is success? Is it being able to finally have the motivation to get a shower? Is it getting your child potty trained? Is it taking the first or last step into your career journey?

However, you measure success let it be your own measurement not someone else’s scale of what they measure success to be. And know that you just waking up today was a success for you and getting through the day as well! Just know you are successful at something and that’s all that matters! Keep up the good work! I’m proud of you!