Success

8/11/2011 0 Comments

I just finished vacuuming the house, dusting upstairs, and cleaning up the kitchen. It took me 40 minutes to do. I still need to dust the downstairs, but I’ll do that tomorrow morning. Yeah, I did this at 7:30 a.m. It’s probably crazy to clean house that early, but I do it because I’m half asleep, and before I know it I’m finished.

Anyway, I was thinking while I was going through the cleaning motions about success. What is success? Some people think to have a big house, nice car, and a fat bank account shouts that they’re successful in life. Others think that having a wonderful marriage, great kids, and a good job is successful. Success is a word that means differently to each person. So I asked myself, what does it mean to me?

I don’t know.

Well, wait a minute. Personally I think bettering yourself, going after what you want in life, do the things that make you happy, like who you are, and love yourself is successful. And of course achieve the things you want to achieve, and never stop dreaming. Yeah, that’s it.

After my parents divorced, our life went to shit. My mom moved us away from our dad, immediately moved a guy into our house who was a total asshole, told us to tell his mom (he was 13 yrs. younger then her) that he was sleeping on the couch when he wasn’t, got married to him, moved us clear across the country to Arizona, and moved us into a dingy apartment in the ghetto. And it got worse from there. We basically grew up as white trash, and my childhood was nothing but a dark and miserable time. Our mom didn’t give a crap about us and only thought about herself and what she could get. Her mom was the same way, which was probably why she was like that. Her mom was a manipulative, evil woman. Seriously. After I got away from that environment, I had a lot of work to do on myself. It took years to conquer those demons, and to find the tools that were never given to me, to get through this life. The hurt that Mom never really loved us is still there though, and will never go away. It’s branded on my psyche, along with other hurtful things as well. But despite all that, and what my sister and me went through, I was able to turn my life around. Also, my sister had broken that mother-treating-her-daughter-like-shit cycle. She was determined to treat her daughter on how we should have been treated, and she did a really good job raising my niece. She broke that cycle, and I’m proud of her for that.

So, have I been successful in my life so far by overcoming all the things I’ve been through? I guess so, yeah, or how they say it in North Dakota: Ya betcha. I also had hit the lottery–relationship wise–when I met Kevin (that’s another story I’ll have to share one of these days) because he’s like the best person in the world. He’s my best friend :). So I was very lucky in love. Now if only I could be just as lucky in making it as a novelist, I would definitely feel successful. I just wonder what’s going to happen. Kevin thinks because I wrote 2 books and working on my third one that is a huge accomplishment. He had told me I should be proud of myself for that, and I am proud of myself, but I won’t be satisfied until my books are published and people fall in love with them. To me, when that happens, then I can honestly say I’m successful.