Well, I’m starting to settle down from my mid-life crisis and feeling at peace again. Here’s what I learned:

I am strong: I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. I switched careers in the middle of my life and tried something new. Instead of just wishing I should have, I did it, and I learned a great deal about myself. I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything.

I am brave: When it was time for me to leave because I realized that working for a corporation was solely driven by money because that is how business works, I gave myself a one-day pity party and then looked at other options. There were lots of other options.

I honored my red flags: Okay. This one took awhile because I had red flags all over the place. It just took one day of self-medicating with three glasses of champagne to realize that working for a corporation was not going to work. I don’t like to be controlled or feel trapped. I’m better with my own set schedule and my own business.

I am a teacher: As a Personal Trainer, I was more interested in educating my clients on how to do workouts and how to eat right. I wasn’t interested in getting them to re-sign. It was my job to teach them and then send them on their way. Um, that doesn’t work very well in sales. Nope. I then realized that I missed teaching in general. I kept asking the college students, who worked the front desk, if they needed help with their papers.

I am not motivated by money but learning: That attitude does not work very well in sales. I soak up knowledge like a sponge (yes, typical simile), but I love learning and passing on creative ways to learn to my clients and students. I’ve always been that way.

I am not scared to talk to people: I have no problem going up to strangers at a gym and talking to them and showing them different workouts. I’m not trying to pick them up, but I was trying to teach them.

I can have both worlds: Nothing is black and white, yet that is a black and white statement. I can have the best of both worlds. I can train my clients part-time and teach boot camp and stay in the fitness world so that I can hold myself accountable, and I can teach part-time at the college level so that I can teach students how to write and how to look beyond their own little worlds, like I have looked beyond mine own.

I love my family: Being away from my husband and kids all the time was horrible. Just horrible. I realized how important family was to me.

I am a writer: I didn’t honor my writing as much as I should have, and my stories piled up in my head until I had to do something . . . that’s probably where the three glasses of champagne came into being. I have to let those voices out and give them life or I am a mess.

So in the end, I am not miserable but very content with my journey.  But who am I kidding? Our journeys are really never over. Are they?