Lessons Learned

The last two years have been the adventure of a lifetime. I have been extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience it. And I had that opportunity due to the patience, love and understanding of my beautiful husband, Bill.

I can’t say that I just learned one lesson, for I learned so many – some of them more than once! I can honestly say that I stretched myself further than I ever have before in my life. Further, in fact, than I ever wanted to. I learned things about myself and became stronger. I flew past learning about fear and became intimately familiar with terror. I learned that terror, quite literally, stinks.

We started our business, Scotia Vacations. And it still continues now. It’s a break-even venture. It didn’t turn out to be the year-round money-making venture that we hoped. I would say that there is potential for expansion, but I don’t think we’re going to take it there. It would likely take an infusion of cash that I’m not sure that I want to part with. Two years of parting with our hard-earned cash has made me a little jumpy on the subject.

I didn’t just fulfill one dream. Due to less than perfect circumstances (and a bit of sheer desperation), I fulfilled my lifelong dream to practice Real Estate. Oh God, how I hate real estate!!! I was horrible at it. It is not a world that I want to live in. I may decide one day to take what I learned about Real Estate and pursue something on the peripheral edges of the field. But I will never willingly enter the fray again. But I LEARNED! And I tried it. And now my questions are no longer unanswered.

So where are we now? In a quiet and happy place of stability. Chaos did not suit us. Not at all. I have returned to working for “the man”. Working for myself = chaos. Working for the man = quiet happy place of stability. And this is what I learned. I’m back in Social Services. Why? Because I’m bloody good at it.

Am I finished with adventure? God, I hope not. I just hope that the rest of my adventures do not take us as close to the edge of financial ruin as this one did. So for me, the adventure was not, apparently, about trying something that I have always wanted to do and being wildly successful at it and going in another wonderful direction for the rest of my life.

For me, my adventure was trying something I have had a burning need to try my entire life and learning. I learned that it is likely that I never traveled that path before in my life because I was already where I was meant to be.