I don’t know where to start, so I guess I’ll just start here.
What is my biggest regret?
At my age, I’ve had plenty of time to make a lot of bad decisions and mistakes in my life, and I have probably (thankfully) forgotten over half of them. I like to think that the lessons learned from those bad decisions have stuck, and now I’m a better person for it.
But if you don’t try, you’ll never know, and if you don’t put yourself out there, how can you learn? Grow? Succeed?
Fancy words, right? But I’m kinda over it. I’ve heard these types of phrases all my life, and I’m getting kinda tired of trying to conform to what people think I should be. I just want to be who I am.
I’m drifting from the topic, but this does have some bearing on my point. I’ll get back to it.
So, let’s take a look at a few years back. At the beginning of 2020, right before the shit hit the fan globally, my day job (where I worked as a procurement analyst, loved my office, my co-workers, and my manager) had been purchased by a much larger corporation. That corporation decided to move all their procurement specialists to Atlanta, a place I did not want to move to.
We got a very nice severance package, and my husband has a wonderful job here in Dallas, so I stayed here and let the life as an analyst go. I finished my college courses, graduated with a 4.0, and stared at the two paths in front of me.
Dive 100% into my writing and website, and just hope that I might be able to catch a little lightning in a bottle.
OR
Pick up another day job that I had always had an interest in and explore the possibilities there.
Well, for those of you who follow my TikTok (which is where I went after I stopped posting my blogs), you know what I chose. I went with the ‘safer’ option, took training courses, passed my tests, paid my fees, picked a brokerage, and became…
A Real Estate Agent
DUN, DUN, DUN.
Again, as those of you who follow my TikTok already know, I chose this path, and when I set out, my motivations were pure. My goal was to help first-time home buyers find a home. I wanted the one-on-one interaction with families and to guide first-time home buyers through a very long and confusing process.
Despite my crippling anxiety and ADHD, I actually succeeded. I helped many families find their first homes and make it to the closing table. It’s a shame that all of them couldn’t have been great people, but I guess that’s the case anywhere you look.
At the end of my 2nd year, I looked back at my finances vs the amount of my time, health, and sanity that was sucked up by my new career, and it was devastating. Over half of what I brought home was taken by my brokerage, my team, and all the fees that go into keeping a license active. So when March rolled around and it was time to renew, I just didn’t. I let it all go.
I let go of the stress, the masking, the politeness, and now I’m on the way back to being me, finally.
I do want to make one thing clear: I do not regret being an agent, and honestly, helping some of my clients achieve their dreams will always be one of the highlights of my life.
But for all that money, time, and effort that I could have put into my writing, I know I would have made at least the same amount of money and been happier doing it.
So, what is my biggest regret?
Not believing in myself.
And after saying all that, I still kinda don’t. Ya know… believe in myself.
It’s one thing for me to be reading my work while I’m still in the editing process and getting it ready for publication, but if I look at it in book form or on my Kindle as a reader would, I cringe and just want to suck it all back in. The fact that I’m putting my stories on a page and throwing them out there for people to ridicule and tear apart is mind-boggling.
lol. Why would I do that?
Then, I finally got around to opening the last box from my Year of Sanderson impulse buy, which I have loved every single box I’ve gotten. Everything was always packaged so well, full of nifty trinkets and loot from the Cosmere, and at the bottom of this last shipment was another sealed and packaged box. I opened it up to find a blank journal with this on the cover.
This is one of the many ways to make a grown woman start crying. Even now, you can go to the website to purchase this, and the description states, “Now it’s your turn.”
Fuck. I guess this is the universe speaking to me.
Now, I know I’m in my head with all this writing business. Thief is still sitting on my editing table half done, The Angel Saga’s full outline is beckoning, and the continuation of The Phoenix Curse constantly looms over my shoulder, and it is GURMPY.
So, okay. I’m here. I’m back again, and I promise to try.
Try to write. Try to believe in myself, and most of all, just try to be me.
