Contests and Other Noise~

Let me start by telling you where I was at a few years ago.  2008 and 2009 were a couple of the worst years of my life.  I was dumped for the 2nd time by my boyfriend of 10 years.  In the same month I became a primary caregiver for my stepmom who was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) and gave up all semblance of life as I knew it.  I spent two years being a caregiver first to her and then to my father.  I was sucked up into the life of doctors, therapists, ministers, social workers and appointments all to do with the business of dying or, in my dad's case, keeping him alive.

I tried to block out the fact that I had no personal love life.  Let's face it I had no life period other than the almost daily trips to my parent's house.  Add to that my beloved cat developed an inoperable tumor in his spinal column and had to be put down in late 2009.

I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically bankrupt.  Last Christmas was not joyful.  And I developed my own personal health issues because I was taking so much care of everyone else I was ignoring my own well being.  Add an additional 50 lbs over the two year period and I looked and felt like crap.

In the middle of all this turmoil one of my closest friends wanted me to fill out an application for a radio contest.  This wasn't your typical contest where you called into the station and answered some obscure trivial pursuit type question and won two tickets to Emerald Queen Casino to see 3 Dog Night or Smokey Robinson. 

This is a different kind of radio station.  They called it "Transformational Talk Radio".  I had to write an essay to apply.  And it wasn't an easy essay you could b.s. your way through such as "who do you admire".  It was to write 500 words answering the question,  "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"  Then the second question was, "How would you pay it forward". 

OMG.  I had no idea.  No interest in even thinking about it.  My friend had won in 2009 and she felt transformed.  She wanted that for me.  But I was so overwhelmed with my personal life, trying to work full time and not get fired, that the last thing I wanted to do was write this darn essay.  She nagged and nagged so I decided that to get her off my back I would just slap something together and send it.

I picked one of the worst days for my depression and energy and just wrote.  I copy and pasted it into the form on the internet and pushed send.  There, I could honestly tell her I had done the exercise and let it go.

Flash forward 8 months...an email...YOU ARE A FINALIST!   

OMG, OMG, OMG, ...noooooooooo!!  The radio show host called me and we talked for a while.  I told her a bunch of stuff I only half believed and thought...ok  that's done!  She had narrowed it from 400 entrants to 200 to 25 to 7 winners.  And in the end I was one of them!  This was the last thing I wanted.  But how do you say no?  It was very flattering and my girlfriend so excited for me.  And it is turning out to be life changing for me.

So began several months of trying to figure out what the heck to do as my pay it forward project and start my path of self discovery and change.  One of the things I did was start a blog.  Not this one.  A more public one that talks about my pay it forward project and the progress with the radio station winnings which are life coaches, money coaches, gifts, etc.  That part has been wonderful.

But what I discovered about myself is that I can actually write!  And quite well I might add if I do say so myself.  But I feel very hindered and uncomfortable about what I wanted to write on that blog.  My dad reads it for heaven's sake!  I wanted to have a forum where I could really open up and talk about my feelings, possibly dating again, issues with work, and just my life in general.  And do it annonymously.  So I was talking to a life coach the other day and she suggested I start a new blog and not tell anyone.  So here I am!

And I'm taking you on this journey with me.  You are SO lucky!!