Part I: The Hidden Bargain Beneath Achievement

Making Space

At the back of an old journal, I found a small velvet pouch.

Inside was a folded piece of paper:

Joy.

Freedom.

Ease.

Authenticity.

And beside it, a picture of my grandmother.

I wasn’t expecting either of them to change the way I understood myself.

Or success.

Searching for Safety

After the shock of losing my mom and nephew within two months I had the privilege of taking time off work.

I wandered the house, a little lost.

I couldn’t write.

I couldn’t create.

I certainly couldn’t work with clients.

So I floated.

And watched Bridgerton.

But mostly, I wandered.

The way they had died shattered the illusion that life could be managed, that bad things could be prevented.

And for someone that loves control, this was the lesson in surrender I knew was coming but didn’t want.

Since I couldn’t control what had happened, I looked to my surroundings.

Where could I find control?

Where could I find safety?

Making Space

As I wandered the house I started reorganizing.

Reorganization gave me a sense of control.

I remember doing a lot of this kind of thing before my son was born, but then it was called nesting.

Birth and death had both asked me to prepare for a version of life that didn’t exist yet.

The first thing I did was buy a bookshelf for the bedroom and create a cozy meditation corner.

My husband had decorated most of the house. He always asked my opinion, but I rarely had strong preferences and was relieved when he did.

It made it easier at a time when I felt overwhelmed by the move, a small child, and my business.

But as I searched for shelves and imagined making the space my own, I realized something.

I’d become accustomed to fitting myself into existing spaces rather than creating my own.

My office was the one room that felt distinctly mine. I arranged it the way I wanted. I painted. I wrote. I created. I stretched.

That was my next project. I wanted my desk to face the room, not the wall.

I wanted to make space for the version of myself that was coming. One who wrote more, painted more, and moved differently.

I recognized immediately that the person that existed months before was gone.

There would be no going back.

At first, it was just a bookshelf.

Then it was my office.

Then it was my son’s closet.

Then it was mine.

My eyes landed on the boxes on the upper shelves of my closet.

An old box of keepsakes: my first roller skate key, you know, the big metal one?

A plate from Sydney when my brother traveled there.

A keychain from my first triathlon.

A CD of photos from my first trip to Vegas.

Tiny artifacts from lives I had already lived.

And then there was a box of journals.

Before we moved across the country in 2020, I had thrown away dozens of old journals, as I periodically do. I read through some and toss or burn them, whatever feels more appropriate. I do a good purge every few years, but it had now been five.

Most of my journals were oriented around business. I started my business in 2018, and entrepreneurship is not an easy thing.

My business has been through so many iterations. I’ve tried and failed at so much. There are ideas I keep returning to, not quite ready to give up.

I was living the embodiment of hope over experience.

But this time I saw something different.

Instead of seeing failure, I saw perseverance.

After all, success comes after failures, plural.

Page after page, year after year, I kept showing up.

There’s only one tiny journal I never throw away.

It holds all my goals starting from 2008.

Next: the one journal I never throw away