That one hits close to home for me.

 Life is slowly getting back to normal in Monicaland. 

I know I haven't posted much since I moved. Okay, technically, I haven't posted about my move at all, but the truth is that I'm still waiting for the move to be final. 

Selling a house and buying another house is a pretty major life decision to make. It involves at least a dozen or so professionals, plus family and friends and parents and brothers who help out, too. 

There's a meme out there in internetland that says that adulthood is like looking both ways to cross the street and then getting hit by a plane.

I agree with this.

Sometimes, when I think I get life figured out, and when I think I'm on the right path, something comes along and wacks me in the face. Suddenly, I get that feeling in my chest like there's a thousand pounds of bricks sitting on it.

More often than not, though, that feeling goes away pretty quickly. 

Have I mentioned what the last year of my life has looked like?!?

Anyway, now I'm just whining. Part of life returning to normal in Monicaland is attending leadership trainings.

Leadership means a lot to me. I recognize now, more than ever, how critically important it is in an organization. 

Without proper leadership and structure in place, the whole place collapses on top of itself.

The Zoom session I went to today was amazing and soothing for my heart. The fact that I'm back at the place where I'm doing professional development on what I'm passionate about means a lot to me.

I shared this in a group chat, and the speaker asked me to expand on it a little.

I wrote down this quote: If you don't have a purpose that you believe in, why would you take the risk of failing? Of experimenting and failing?

For me, it's kind of groundbreaking to realize that you have to believe in something in order to fail at it. That one hits close to home for me. 

Can we talk about this for a second? 

In order to fail, you have to believe in something. As in, the whole reason you're trying something to begin with is because you have faith.

Faith that it will work out. 

Faith that it won't all fall apart.

Faith that you don't get hurt.

Faith that you won't fail. 

I contemplated that for much of the session, and thought about how it applied to my professional and personal life. 

Then, the speaker asked us another question. 

What's at risk here?

As it turns out, the person that I was paired with in a breakout room was also brand new at her job. We had a pretty easy answer for this question.

Every single thing we have is at risk, from the roof over our heads to our bank accounts to our mental health.

When you start something new, you put everything, and I literally mean every single thing, at risk. 

I'm just going to pause for a moment and let that sink in. 

There are people out there, myself included, that are willing to risk everything just to make a change. 

And sometimes, you fail. 

(Not now, though. Life is pretty bitchin' at the moment.)

---

That's what I've come up with at the moment. It might not be groundbreaking to you, but it was to me today. 

When our breakout room was closing, I had 30 seconds to explain the last few years of my life to my breakout room buddy. While we both waited patiently to re-join the large group, she said something to me that stood out. 

"I'm really proud of you." 

Thank you, internet stranger, for your kindness today. 

It turns out that I'm pretty proud of myself, too.