Monday Motivation

So yeah, got another story for you that relates to this. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the horrific accident I was involved in, where I was hit by a car. Flash forward to about five years down the road. I was a secretary at the time. The long-term effects of the injuries I sustained were starting to tell on me. Nerve damage in the hands, taking away the ability to type. Constant pain. Missing work and spending days on end on the couch wondering how I was supposed to keep going. It became pretty obvious I was about to lose my job over the whole thing. The writing was on the wall.

I had to find something else. The old dream of working in music or video production had reasserted itself in the last year as things went from bad to worse. I'd put that dream aside, thinking it would be better to get something stable, a career I would be able to count on. Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on a disability that would make the 'guaranteed' anything but.

I'd checked into going to school in Florida to study music and video production. Hanging on by the thinnest of threads, I applied and got in. I was due to start classes in the fall. I had a grand total of three thousand dollars to my name, not a whole lot to live on for any length of time in south Florida. No friends to speak of lived down there. No job lined up. No place to live. And Hurricane Andrew had just swept through the area, so it would be a mess from the get go. It wasn't the best of thought-out plans, but my situation was desperate.

Just as I feared, I was fired a full month ahead of the date I'd planned to quit. I packed my little hatchback with what possessions I could fit in it and left Delaware. I stopped by a friend's place in Georgia on my way down and confessed my living address in Florida would probably be my car. She got on the phone with her dad, who lived in Miami, about an hour from my landing spot. And just like, that, I had a temporary place to bunk.

Not only that, but at orientation just before classes started, I met a fellow student, a bubbly little sprite with a huge personality. When she asked where I was staying, I mentioned how long my commute was. "Come live with me and my mom. You'll be sleeping on the floor, but it's free. My mom doesn't want me there alone while she works." Within seconds of saying hello, just like that, my situation improved.

It kept getting better as the weeks went by, as if the universe was rewarding me for finally doing what I'd felt pulled toward for a long time. It took a huge leap of faith...I won't lie that I wasn't in terror about how I was supposed to survive when I drove out of that driveway in Delaware...but it helped to make me who I am, who I wished to be.

If something is calling to you, pulling at you, take that leap of faith. It could be the most frightening time of your life, but it could also be the most rewarding. It's worth it to at least try.