I have had it on my mind to write for quite a few days now, but hungry babies and work and dirty dishes have taken precedence. People who don’t know the sacred calling of the mundane don’t appreciate letting passions fall by the wayside for a time. That’s okay.

Here is what I was wanting to say: at every stage of my life, I have felt like I “arrived”. When I made the adjustment to working and took on the breakfast shift at Burger King, I felt like I’d never need anything better and that I had learned so much. Then I learned how to answer phones and worked overnight and wow, I’m really an adult working two jobs. Then I got “the best job ever” (I only recently stopped thinking of it that way), and goodness, I know my place in life; I’m really hitting my stride!

{Sidenote: I find it interesting that all of these these landmarks in my life are work-related. People say women are supposed to be more interested in relationships than work, but I’ve only more recently developed that in myself.}

I lost The Best Job Ever thanks to the Recession, and after that I took some steps in my quest to “better myself” that ended up in more pain than I could contain within a single blog post. On the incredibly (incredibly) rare chance this has met the eyes of the person I hurt the most, I am sorry. I will never stop being sorry, even if I’m forgiven. There isn’t an excuse for what I did. Nobody deserves what I did to you.

I lost the will to succeed for quite a while after that, but I took solace in my job even then. I might have had a home life in total shambles, but at least my workplace valued me. In many ways, that 9-5 saved my life. Maybe if you’ve lived through it with me, you understand my strange devotion to The Desk Job.

Maybe it’s the lie of time, but somehow I got over the hugeness of my failures. I got married to a man who makes me feel safe in ways I didn’t know a person could. I was blessed with children. I moved to the suburbs. And in all this, I started to feel once again like I’ve learned “so much”, and I’ve gained so much wisdom, and I have (Lord have mercy I’ve actually said these words) “hit my stride”.

And I’m writing here because this new state of “arrival” I’ve reached — this pinnacle title of “mom”. . .  I may have learned a thing or two more than I knew ten years ago, but I have reached nothing; I am nothing. And somehow I think if I can just hang onto that one truth, I might just make it out alive here.