Printed off and in my office. 

Goals… I gots ‘em. (I totally lol cat’ed myself there). 3 years… I need to be making double what I am now. It’s a giant goal, and I’m not even sure how yet, but it must be done. I cannot tolerate being even one being iota financially dependent on my ex to support me and my kids. This has got to change.

Living well is *the* best revenge.  Being so happy I couldn’t care less, because my life is 100% my own – BLISS. 

It’s worth every single effort.  

I had been thinking about this particular goal on the way into work this morning. Normally I listen to the radio, but today I wanted the quiet. I was thinking about where I have come since last year. 

This time last year I was jobless, with 4 kids, going into Christmas. I was applying for work, but let’s face it, who’s looking to hire just before the holidays? Nobody. I had been a partner in a small business (with big dreams), but only worked evenings and weekends before the big split with my ex that October. I had to sign everything over to my business partner to save her and our dream. The things I wish I hadn’t done… hindsight is such a son of bitch sometimes. I wish I had been stronger. Heartless. Unaffected. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I loved that shop… the idea of where it could go… Oprah-esque in scale was my DIVA! empire… *sigh*

If that experience taught me anything, it’s that with grit and moxie you can do any damn thing you want. You want it bad enough? Hell yeah, you can do it. But you have to want it more than you want to sleep and eat. There are costs. There are prices to be paid. Workaholics are rarely known for their amazing, fulfilled relationships. And as the 80% parent to my peeps, i have to be careful. I’m already on the tippy point of absentee, in the sense that I work full time, and the time we get together is so often the forced march of schedule and getting shit done. The days of being volunteer and baking mom are over. I find it hard to remember what it was even like, being home full time now, and I had 7 years of it. 

I’m lucky. I managed to get a job in what I love – design and coding, in a great start up company, where we could break the 1M mark this year. I landed it in April. Just before I did, I was on the verge of collapse  when I went and saw my lawyer for the last time (so useless and such a waste of money – don’t get me started). He said to me, “If you don’t start making some real money, you are going to lose your kids.”

I had been working a 100% commission sales job for advertising, marketing and websites – the sister company to the production company I work for now. I visited anywhere from 15 – 30 businesses a day selling – in heels. I was exhausted. I was struggling finding child care, I was dealing with so many difficult things with the split. Mike threatening me at every turn – in our small town spreading stories about me, not paying me child support at first, dealing with the emotional anxiety of knowing he had clipped my wings, and I couldn’t get more than 50km away from him without an order of mobility which he had denied me. I had even been served papers, as a “flight risk”.  So with that news from the lawyer, and the rest, I called Him, sitting in my car outside the law office, having just cried.

“Go to your boss and tell him, you need to be making X number of dollars. You’re going to need to get a job making that anyway. Ask. Ask for what  you want. What is the worst thing that could happen? He could say he can’t.” is what he said to me, among other things. I think he feels a strange knightly responsibility for me. At that time he was seeing another tumblr woman. Along with me. I was in and out of the know, if that makes any sense – Regardless, what he said to me that day was a dramatic turning point. It saved my ass. It changed my life. 

I asked (and worked like a mother fuckin’ BOSS). I got the job on the production side of things and became a great fit to the team. I’ve even gotten a raise since then. In my distress, I would never have thought to just ask, but it made all the difference.  

I did it in heels.
I did it in stockings. 
I did it with 4 kids needing to eat and bills to pay.
I did it without knowing where I was going, just a desperate push to not fail.

As I pulled into the parking lot this morning, thinking about all this ground I’ve made, the hills I’ve taken, I felt ready to kick the day’s ass. I did. And in the production room, I can do it wearing my chucks.  

Now I just need a reason to wear heels again…