Agh! Gotta Get Goals Challenge
I tried covering my ears and singing “La La La La La” but I can still hear Crotchety Old Lady snarling at me to shake the dust out of my neurotransmitters and get with the Gotta Get Goals challenge.
Solo Dreamer tagged me, so of course I’ve spent considerable time checking out his goals as well as those of a few others I admire. Damn. My goals need some exercise.
Like Chuck Newton, I am not fond of goals. Correction. I’m not too fond of goals right now.
Age twenty-two was a fun time to have goals. Age fifty-one, not so much.
Newly married without kids. Fun time to have goals. Twenty-eight years married, seven years away from law with a son and daughter entering college. Hard to work up the same fun and excitement.
But.
The Crotchety One and her bony finger are poking, pointing and tsking. “Get over it, babycakes.”
If you’re looking for wild and crazy, look elsewhere.
These are my goals. And I’m only listing five. And I can do that, ’cause it said so in the rules.
1. To love myself just as I am, just for today. I considered adding a footnote for clarity, but it would be more accurately labeled an appendix, so I dropped it.
2. To have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. This actually counts as three, right?
3. Live one day at a time. Or one hour at a time, as the situation warrants.
4. Continue to heal spiritually, emotionally and physically until it’s my turn on the mortuary marquee.
5. Live each day as the gift that it is.
Whew. Ok, Crotchety, now take the night off.
Taking a Risk in Plain View
Sherrie Sisk’s guest post at Susan Carter Liebel’s blog, Build a Solo Practice, LLC, spoke to me. We’re talking, “Girlfriend, I’m talking to you.”
Sherrie’s conflicted feelings about starting a solo law practice were met by the sound of her own voice beckoning. “Yes, but … I really, really want this.” And Sherrie responded with the courage it takes to say, “Yes, I can do this. Yes, I trust myself.”
I’m on the same journey, but hell, I’m bringing up the rear. We’re talking the dust at the end of the rear. We’re talking layers, nay years of layers, of dust in the neurotransmitters.
Yet in the corners lives Crotchety Old Lady with a bony finger. And she’s poking me in all manner of bodily places, but usually at about rib number seven. “Come on, honey, do it! Whaddya waiting for? Whaddya want, a formal invitation?”
Well, a lot less debt and The Teenagers’ college paid for would be nice. A fully-equipped office with a “serenity” decor would be peachy. As would a full appointment book, intact client list and six months’ worth of overhead in the bank.
The Crotchety One and her bony finger have a good snort and guffaw. And the pokes continue. This is making it increasingly difficult to sleep or have a decent cup of morning java.
The more I resist the risk, the harder the bony finger pokes. If I’m looking for divine guidance, I think it’s been here awhile. Damn, that rib is getting sore.
Out of the Closet
In the words of the late Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles -
Is it twue how zey say zat you people are … gifted?
(Lights go out, sound of zipper opening)
Oh. It’s twue. It’s twue. It’s twue. It’s twue!
And so yes, it’s twue, as Chuck Newton wrote, that I am ” … a mom, a lawyer, with teenagers, stuck at home.”
And it’s twue that I am betwixt and between, as my late father would say, on the issue of going back to practicing law. With a senior and junior in high school, I better figure out some way to fill the space between college parent weekends.
I do have the first few months of my son’s freshman year covered. It’ll take that long for the big suck machine, aka my wet/dry vac, to inhale the dearth of hair in his bathroom and for me to power wash his shower walls and under the toilet rim.
Still, there will come a time when even the melodic roar of my wet/dry vac will no longer cut it for me.
The question is, now that I’m out of the closet, do I have what it takes to dust off the license and launch?
