Feeling stuck or running out of luck?

Time to brush off the muck!

I knew I should have been a rapper or a song writer after that awesome title. Can't you just hear the beats now? No? Alrighty-o...

I had a bad week. And, yes, I do have bad weeks as smiley and bubbly as I may appear. We all have those, right? The thing is I really shouldn't be having a bad week. I'm healthy. I have a job. The bills are paid on time. My husband is amazing. So yeah, I really don't have a concrete reason for mine. And usually I can turn around from a bad day faster than most people. All it takes is jumping on the stair stepper or running a few miles to feel like my old self.

I mean, three weeks earlier my mom did put our amazing family dog, Pete, down. Am I still grieving? Possibly. But then I spent a great Fourth of July with my family and my husband. We took a day off work and spent a wonderful day with my grandparents (they even played KUBB with us...yes, my 84-year-old grandpa and my grandma played a lawn game). How could I be down about that?

My Gramps playing KUBB (he's gonna be 84 in a couple months)

I can't totally tell if I'm still grieving, missing my family or feeling plain ol' stuck in life. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

I was to the breaking point this week of desperately wanting to get in my car and drive, with no plans, no directions - just drive - never looking back. (Of course I'd have to pick up Karl on the way.) I don't even know why I felt the way I did, other than to say my days felt like I was living in a dark hole.

Yikes, right?

My Grams taking us girls all the way! Our victory dance.

Do you ever feel like this though? Kind of like you have this energy inside of you surging through your veins mixed with this intense light burning, dying to get out, but nothing is happening.

Maybe you keep trying and keep working really hard and continue to juggle everything that comes your way, and you keep going through the motions and keep pushing yourself further than you'd imagine and still...nothing.

Then the worst part of it all is waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. Waiting makes room for self-doubt, poor judgement, fear and questions. Is this how life will be for me? Continuous pushing and juggling? Will I have to keep working so hard forever? Or is this dream of mine not supposed to happen and I'm being warned? Does God have other plans for me?

And then, the icing on the cake: sometimes you watch as people walk into a room, bat their eyelashes and get everything. What gives?

Does this every happen to you? Maybe you feel like you're going through the motions, wondering when that magical moment will happen. Maybe you're stuck in a dead-end job, struggling to make ends meet. Maybe you're looking for more, but aren't exactly sure what that "more" is. Or you know exactly what it is you want, but it's just not happening. Why?

I think we've all been there. I think we all hit moments in our lives where we feel stuck. We lose our sense of purpose. We question everything. And we feel trapped. Maybe we can't live our life the way we want due to our lists of never ending "grownup" responsibilities. Maybe we let fear take over. Maybe we just don't know what it is we're supposed to be anymore.

Well, guess what? Last night as I waited for Karl to return from Duluth, I picked up one of my many magazines (Ladies' Home Journal). I had time to flip through each page and read whatever articles I wanted. And there on page 39 was an article I swore was written just for me. It was called, "Get Lucky - You have to be in the right place at the right time - and the good news is, you're already there."

Well, well, well. What the heck have I been moping around for? Maybe instead of looking at the glass half full, I've been looking at it half empty this whole time. In short, my attitude sucked. It was time for a reality check and change.

Two points the article brought out:

"There's truth to the adage 'You make your own luck.'"

And,

"Lucky people assume that momentary failure is merely a pothole on the road to success."

That's it! I had fallen in a pothole! Duh. Maybe I felt like I was wearing a straight jacket because I was looking down instead of up. For heaven's sake, when we keep our heads down, we miss opportunities and seek answers and direction in the dark. But if we look up, we would see the light and all the tools we need to climb out of the hole.

So today, I brush off all the muck and crud and start climbing until I reach that dream of mine - the dream I feel so strongly inside of me.

As the article says, "Call it intuition, a sixth sense or a hunch - those flashes of insight are shortcuts to your true feelings... There's a difference between being intuitive and being impulsive. If you want to get lucky, sometimes you just have to go with your gut."

My gut tells me I want to be a writer. And it's going to happen. But I have to give it time and, yes, I'm going to have to keep working at it. The journey won't be an easy one - there will be more potholes, but I can't give up on it, or myself and go against what I feel so strongly inside. That feeling is there for a reason and I need to listen to it.

But at the same time, I need to live life to the full to see all the opportunities and possibilities waiting for me. And they aren't waiting for me in a pothole, that's for sure!

Not only that but a few pages further in the magazine was another article about a woman who lost her three beautiful daughters...in a second. Her life changed FOREVER. As I choked back tears and sobs after reading and hanging on to her each word, her one point drove everything home for me.

"Before the accident I'd look around my house and wish we could move someplace bigger. I'd worry about money and think about all the things I wanted my girls to have. It shouldn't have taken a tragedy like this to get me to finally understand: Things don't matter. They can be replaced. But before the girls died, I didn't realize just how much I could really lose."

For that I say, start digging yourself out of that hole and get lucky before life passes you by! Even the small successes are victories.