Must Trust Tomorrow

 We all know the expression, ‘when one door closes, another one opens’. I had a boss many years ago who took a different take on that. He told me ‘Never close your own doors because there will be plenty of others who will do that for you.’ Very often I return to his wisdom to remind myself not to block my own visions. I need to keep my doors wide open, no matter what.

 Habit is the killer of life, for most of our habits are bad. They are thoughts that limit us, the repeat dilemmas we find ourselves in, the same men we keep on bringing into our lives. If we wish for our habits to break, our attitude needs to shift. I like to practice what I preach.

 A few months ago, I decided that I needed to break a lifelong habit of living my life for everyone else rather than for me.  It hit me that I haven’t really explored life on my terms, with my desires, passions and heart at the helm. While I have loved being a giver, loved doing for others, I realised that the one person I haven’t been giving to, is myself. And with the big 50 looming next year, I started to wonder at what age I would start to be kind to myself; 60? 70? 80?

 So with a huge dollop of fear and a freefall into the deep cavern of the unknown, I recently decided to take a huge leap of faith and follow my dreams of being a full time writer. In four weeks time, my daughter and I will travel back to live in Oxford for the year.

 The sound of doors slamming though was potentially deafening. Did I have the money for the trip? No. Did I know how I was going to make a living? No. Did I know where my daughter would go to school? No. Did I know where we were going to live? No.  But there was one door significantly larger than the rest and it was WIDE open: did I have a burning desire to discover who I am and really start living my  life? Yes!

 As I wedged each door firmly open with my belief that somehow, someway, this journey would happen, each door started to stay open on its own accord. There are still some that I have yet to work out, some that I have to really try hard to believe will stay open, but regardless we are on our way. Do I still fear? Of course I do. The unknown is always a little scary. But I now channel that adrenaline into excitement, into the adventure of it all.

 I hang onto the simple mantra I say to myself daily: I must trust tomorrow. For somehow, I know tomorrow will work out for this mother moving forward.