It's the morning of my 34th birthday. I sit here in the shade of a palm tree, sipping my coffee and reflecting on life's unexpected twists and turns. A year ago, I was oblivious to the fact that my life and career were about to be thrown along a new detour that I never expected.
Little did I know that my international travel days were ending and my short-lived career as a publisher was about to transform into a full-time Spanish speaking and teaching gig in Mexico as I now spend my days traveling to local schools by bus training teachers in my second language.
This year has got me thinking about all sorts of things, writing down my dreams and finally running long distances again which I'd missed so much during the years of being pregnant, nursing and with my knee injury two years ago.
And thinking about all these dreams and desires that I have for my future or our future as a family, I'm realizing how much hard work it takes to make something happen.
Over the weekend, we celebrated my birthday. All I wanted was tacos, friends and a night of dancing. The taco truck showed up and the tacos were amazing. My friends came, all 65 of them and it was fun chatting with so many people I love. But the dancing never happened and I truly felt sad about it. As silly as this may sound, I didn't enjoy the party like I had hoped. I truly thought I would spend the night dancing away, instead I was filling up ice buckets, cleaning up spills, making sure everyone else had something to drink and before I knew it, it was 2am and most people were leaving or already gone and the dancing never started. I finally just sat down. I was exhausted.
The next morning, I woke up bright and early and decided to go for my annual birthday run that I promised myself over a decade ago that as long as I can still run, I will always run on my birthday and push myself further than I've been running in that season of life. So yesterday morning, I ran 11 km, which is 4 km longer than my "long runs" these days. And as I was running, I was disappointed in myself - In knowing what I wanted but not making it happen.
This may sound silly, but if all I wanted to do was dance why did I get so distracted in making sure everyone else was doing ok and forgetting to enjoy my own party?
It made me reflect on life too. I have all sorts of dreams for this upcoming year and the next few years that I'm taking consistent steps towards each and every day, and I've realized that,
Nobody else is going to make my dreams happen for me.
Nobody else is going to be getting up early, writing and taking steps towards making my dreams a reality.
Nobody else is going to get the dance party started if they aren't the ones wanting it, so as silly as this comparison may sound, this weekend got me thinking about truly going for what I want despite what's happening around me. There will always be distractions along the way, but once you know what you want you gotta go for it.
Nobody else will do it for you.
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