Nailing it! The ultimate guide for surviving this lifetime

Setting the stage

Agreeing to put your story out there is a little intimidating. So, I think I'm going to approach this as I approach most things in life...with BALANCE.

Some days we eat salad and go to the gym. Other days we lick the frosting off the cupcake and call it a muffin.

In all reality, there comes a time when we can talk about the things that once used to be difficult. Because...eventually, with time and healing...those things don't hurt us like they used to.

Read that again. It CAN stop hurting.

A wise woman once told me, "It is comforting to feel heard. It is liberating to feel understood."

What's your elevator pitch? My story is not your story. Your story is not my story. If I was standing in an elevator and someone asked me about you, what would I say about you in those thirty-seconds? What would you say about me?

I like to look at life as a series of moments and intersections. Nothing lasts forever, good or bad. I know that sounds shocking...but it's the truth, time doesn't stop and neither should you.

Our lives are constantly in flux. We think we're in control but there's so much that we're missing. And, we have these moments and intersections that may alter the outcome. Think of a moment as a detour. You're driving down a road and you turn down a cul-de-sac. There's one way in, one way out and you end up on the same road you were once on. Or one way in, a new way out, like a by-pass. The outcome isn't altered...just the time it takes to get there. An intersection, offers choices, new outcomes.

So, who am I? Talk about an elevator pitch stumper...I'm usually at a loss for words. The actual truth in that answer probably depends on what phase of life I was in at the time our moment or intersection happened.

My honest goal in life is to get to a place and know that most of the elevator pitches about me will be mostly positive or I have an acute understanding why they are not. If it didn't serve them, it probably didn't serve you either.

I am no longer a woman that regularly assigns a negative hashtag to myself or to others. Finally, I am enough.

But...I did NOT always feel this way!

Overall, I am a pretty HAP-HAP-HAPPY gal! However, happy people are not perfect people! There's no such thing as a perfect person. And, perfect according to whom? Moments and intersections. Ha! Does anyone really have their shit together, like all the time?

There is no such thing as perfect and normal is boring. So, get comfortable just being uniquely you.

I probably spent way too much time dreading 40. I was waiting for it like some sort of death sentence instead of patting myself on the back for making a milestone. When I was 30, I fell in love with an extraordinary man. It came fast, it came hard, and some days my head still swirls full of memories filled with love and happiness.

I never thought 40 was going to look like this: working most weeks between 60-80 hours, unmarried, no kids. That right there could be a recipe for sadness. In a world where church and state are separate, there is one thing that God and science agree on...people get married and women procreate. My parents did their thing. They met in college and got married at 22. By 26, they had received their greatest joy, ME! Stop rolling your eyes. :) But, when my parents were 40, I was starting high school. They had actual careers, a nice house, 3 amazingly glorious children, and we had crossed off that whole Disney thing.

So, what if I spent my twenties maturing? I was part of a new generation. And, things were lining up the way that science and religion intended for all, coupledom. Things were good...and then, it seemed to come out of nowhere...a seemingly random intersection with a person suffering from antisocial personality disorders, both sociopathic and psychopathic, altered my life in a way I could have never imagined. The snowball effect is real. And, it wasn't just my life...