Don't get excited, friends - Jake is not a new man in my life. It's an old story that I'll get to later, but I thought I should prep you before you get the wrong idea. Haha!
Part One: Renewed Motivation
I am a stay at home mom and that's all I want to be. (I say that like it's not much - all the other stay at home moms are cracking up right now!) My husband and I separated almost four years ago and almost since the day he left I was told - either by a friend or myself - that I was probably going to have to get a job. He's been amazing in the sense that even through this situation, he's allowed me to continue to be a stay at home mom. Through out the past few years I've gone back and forth about re-entering the work force - mostly begrudgingly. Much more "I'm going to have to get a job" vs. "I want to get a job." However, last May a friend of mine told me that she did voice overs. For the first time in a very long time, something interested me.
I took a class - very basic, I went to her house to see her set up, I got some more information from her. And since then I've had a couple of friends offer me opportunities within their companies. None I was really interested in, but opportunities none-the-less. Another friend suggested that I might do well in event planning after seeing how much I enjoyed working on a major fundraiser. Then last week, I walked in on a conversation between two of my friends from my kids' school. The topic: stay at home moms re-entering the work force, either because they want to or feel they have to. What would they do? Go back into the field they were in before kids or something completely different? Would they use the skills they learned in college or motherhood? Or both? Or neither? Where to begin?
Before I knew it, we were scheduling a meeting where we could brainstorm with and for each other. We'll invite other moms. We can use our talents and connections to get each other started. They both thought the voice over idea was a great one for me. They liked the event planning too. What about getting back into manicuring? Na - done with that phase of my life. So what do I want to do? I started thinking about the skills that I would like to use. I love the life coach I see when I'm in Texas - I'd love to help people that way. I love how The Happiness Project has changed my life, I'd like to incorporate that somehow. By the time I saw Megan again on Monday, I had what felt like 400 ideas floating around in my head. I immediately challenged her to figure out a career that would utilize them all.
Ask and you shall receive!
Later that day she handed me a book on how to figure out what you want to do. I didn't start reading it until tonight. To be clear, I haven't figured out a career to utilize my 400 ideas. I did, however make a massive list and after circling around for awhile, I found myself back at writing. (Ok - there are some other things combined with that, but we're going to focus on writing for right now.) Writing. Hmmm. Didn't I say I wanted to do that before? As a matter of fact, didn't another friend of mine encourage me to get going by helping me set up a blog? That was fun. I enjoyed that. Now, when was the last time I blogged again? Down to my computer I came. In 2011 I had 33 posts. Not nearly as many as I would have liked, but hey, I was just getting started. In 2012 I had....drum roll please....six. SIX! What??? What happened to 2012? I decided immediately that this won't do, so I must blog and I must do it now.
Back to the original question: what to write about? I know! At some point I started a "random things to write about when I can't figure out what to write about" list. There were a few things on the list I had already written about, so I figured I'll just write about whatever is next. Ok - weird topic - but here we go...
Part Two: Jake
Jake is my high school sweetheart's dad. I think of him every now and then because I have a soft spot for him. He was one of those dads who always seemed harsh. Booming loud when he was angry, quiet most of the rest of the time. I don't remember many conversations with him - I was a teenager after all - but there were some. Most of the time, I thought I wasn't even on his radar. Until one Christmas....I was at their house on Christmas morning opening presents from my boyfriend and his mom (super sweet lady - still miss her) and there was a good sized box with my name on it. No clue who it was from. I opened it up to find a beautiful blown glass unicorn. (At the time I was very into blown glass and unicorns.) I was blown away - it was gorgeous! I tried to thank my boyfriend, but he said it wasn't from him. His mom said it wasn't from her - she hadn't seen it before. His brother and dad didn't say anything. Quite the mystery! It wasn't until a few days later that my boyfriend got it out of him that it was, indeed from his dad. This quiet gesture totally changed the way I saw him. Here I thought I was completely insignificant to him and it turns out I was mistaken.
Fast forward several years. My high school sweetheart and I had long since broken up. I was still friends with his cousin and we were having lunch one day when she said, "You sure made an impression on Jake." Whoa - what? Where did that come from? She went on to tell me that they had recently spent some time with him and at a breakfast he retold the story of when I had gone on vacation with them and how I eat my fried eggs.
I guess it's time to admit that I have some rather odd eating habits. What was interesting was that she was able to tell me - in detail - how I eat my eggs. As she re-told Jake's story, I remembered that breakfast. I was half way through my breakfast when I realized that he was done eating, yet he sat at the table staring at me. He was completely enthralled with my bizarre routine. That night at dinner, he told everyone all about it. Everyone had a good laugh (including me) and we went on with the night. Well now, years later, he's still telling that story. I'm sure I'm not in his thoughts every day, nor is he in mine. But it's nice to know, when someone has touched your life, that you've touched theirs as well.
I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to see Jake again, to tell him that I think about him on occasion or that his seemingly small acts made an impact, but like I said - I have a soft spot in my heart - just for him.
