How do you respond when you’re a government employee and the country is being taken over by an oligarch and a billionaire who want to basically overturn the government and dismiss all the employees? Well, for me, the first thing was to panic, have an anxiety attack, and then break down in front of my boss in tears… so let’s just say it wasn’t a good time. I don’t believe he knew what to do so there he crouched, eye level with me, since I was sitting at my desk reading the latest fear tactic email, and said don’t worry we are all in this together, and tonight, do yourself a favor: watch nothing but puppy videos, It’s self-care. I found this in no way condescending, instead I thought –I get it—the nonstop flood of news, the doom-scrolling, the whiplash from “global crisis” to “new crisis but worse.” It’s exhausting. Maybe the smartest move isn’t another deep dive into the chaos, but a night of watching puppies trip over their own feet. No politics, no panic—just tiny, wiggly creatures who have no idea what inflation is, and honestly, that’s the kind of energy we all need right now.

One of the things, and I say one because there are so many, that I had to give immediate consideration to was what if I lost my job? What would I do, how would I support myself, I’m a single, divorced woman with about 6 to 8 years to work before I can retire and the thought of starting over in another career turned me into a whirling dervish (the slang urban dictionary kind – look it up), truly my head was spinning and I was constantly babbling to myself or anyone who would listen, I was fidgety, anxious, exhausting, and probably a bit irrational – I’m picturing a female Tasmanian devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoon just spinning around her apartment at F4 tornado strength. I seriously wasn’t getting anything accomplished by this negative, breath taking, body shaking, whirlwind happening within me. I needed to pause….

Over my lifetime I have worked in the corporate industry, I was a stay-at-home mom, I worked in higher education, and now in government. I believed this would be my last position until retirement (other than being a mom since that is an ever-growing and changing walk of life), but here I am, on pause, trying to figure out what I would do if I were to be “eliminated”. What I realized after spending time listening to my true self, my intuition, was that I am not going to live my life on high alert just waiting for the King to shout, “off with their heads”, no I was going to keep going, plan an escape route, and stop the spinning.

So, what’s a girl to do? Start a blog? That just sounds crazy, who am I to write a blog? I have no expertise to share, no business to promote, no handcrafted items to sell. So where in the universe did this idea come from? To be honest, I sat with my thoughts, I meditated, I brainstormed, and I genuinely thought about what I was interested in, what would my dream life look like, what would be work but never feel like work? The answer kept showing up as writing. Let’s do a little rewind here, during my quiet listening and free flow brain dumping, the one thing that was a constant urging in my life was writing. As a child, I wrote short stories and gave them to my parents as gifts, believing that words were the best thing I had to offer. As a swoony teenager, I filled pages with sappy poetry, convinced that pouring my heart onto paper would somehow make sense of all the longing. Looking back, I think I was always trying to be heard—even if only by the empty pages in front of me. As a young adult I tried to outline a novel (by the way, that went nowhere – I don’t even think I wrote the first chapter before hitting the trash icon on my old Dell desktop), and then I began writing children’s books later in life – I actually had the courage to send them off to publishers – after eight or ten rejections, I did what any reasonable person would do—I dramatically sighed, declared fate was against me, and gave up… again. But now, looking back, writing has always been there and maybe those attempts weren’t meant to be, maybe it wasn’t the universe’s timing for me, or maybe I just had higher priorities at the time, but regardless of the starts and stops it had always been like a seed planted in the dirt—full of potential but stuck waiting, arms crossed, tapping its little roots, wondering if the sun and rain forgot about it.

Starting a blog feels like stepping into a clearing after wandering the dark woods—open, exposed, and not quite sure if the sun is shining for me. As an introvert with high anxiety and occasional panic attacks, sharing my thoughts with the world is both thrilling and unnerving, and hoping the wind is kind. So here I am, taking that first step, heart pounding, a bit too vulnerable, but my breath is steady. 

Success looks different for everyone. For me, it’s simple—if I can write and it resonates with others, that’s enough. My hope is to sustain myself through my words, at least in part, but that’s something only you—the reader, the engager—can decide. So, if my words speak to you, I’d love you to be part of this journey. Let’s see where the words take us.