 I’m super lucky I get to do what I love for a living, and I’m extremely thankful that I get to do it on my own terms. Every time my little marketing and public relations business successfully completes another 365-day journey around the sun, I consider it to be a major milestone.
Six years ago this month, I quit my last corporate job and went out on my own as a freelance writer and media consultant. It is still the best career decision I ever made. Read all about my big leap into entrepreneurship here. Every single day without exception, I wake up happy to go to work. My heart positively overflows with gratitude for the life and career I have somehow managed to create for myself. (Gross, I know. Go ahead and roll your eyes. I’ll wait.)
0 Comments
 I’ll be 45 next month. It occurred to me that this milestone birthday likely marks my true “middle age.” Yep, I am officially at the mid-point of my existence. Half dead, as it were.
The women in my family are a sturdy lot, particularly on my mother’s side, many of them living until age 90 or older. So, this is not naïveté on my part. It could actually happen. I feel fortunate that I’m more than likely going to grow into a wizened little old lady. If I make it another 45 years, I hope I inherit the spunk of my Aunt Pauline, who was still mowing her 2-acre yard in the heat of rural Mississippi summer just weeks before she passed at age 96.  I saw an article over the weekend that really spoke to me. In fact, the title could have been, “Amy’s Road Map to a Fulfilling Future.”
It wasn’t though. It was called, “6 Traits People with Attractive Energy Possess.” It basically said that you are what you attract, and I have found that to be true over my 43 years on this Earth. For the first 35 or so, my energy brought in more than a few people who were not good for me. So for my second act, I’ll be damned if I am going to waste time any more time on toxic relationships. I try to embody the six things listed in the article every day, but like most things in my life, they are a work in progress. When I was younger, I possessed none of these traits. It is only in middle age that I am able to see their value and aspire to them.  “Midlife: When the universe grabs your shoulders and tells you, ‘I'm not fucking around, use the gifts you were given.’ ” — Brene Brown
I love this quote so much that I want to hug it and squeeze it and name it George. Why? Because it is SO true. In my case, the universe also slapped me across both cheeks before I got the point. But I got it. In a major way. At age 43, I truly have stopped fucking around. In fact, I am embracing middle age in an aggressive (if slightly awkward) bear hug. First off, I had a midlife epiphany (NOT a crisis) when I turned 40 that impelled me to quit the corporate world and start my own business.  The transition from one year to the next is when many of us take time to reflect. I am no different. I like to look back to see how far I’ve come.
For me, 2015 was pretty outstanding on the whole. Sure, there are things I could’ve done differently, but I don’t believe in regrets. Every stumble is a lesson, not a reason for self-flagellation. I wrapped up three years as an entrepreneur in September, and I can now unequivocally say that my little freelance media consulting business is a viable venture. I had my highest billings ever and earned more income than I ever pulled down in a single year before. I’m no longer just paying my bills and surviving, I’m friggin’ thriving, people. It feels awesome. I’m either lucky, smart or both.  I’ve had a lifelong love-hate relationship with a certain, seemingly innocuous word.
"Cute" is today’s universal term for aesthetic admiration, and I think it’s gotten totally out of hand. My shoes are cute. My haircut is cute. My bungalow in the Highlands is cute. I just bought a cute set of dinnerware. But me, ME — a grown-ass woman — I am NOT “a cutie pie,” “cute as a button” or “cute as a bug.” It’s the damndest thing … I say that word in daily conversation to describe everything from clothes to décor to my dogs. I make it a point to tell my girlfriends how cute they look whenever I see them. But when certain people use it against me, I mentally throw elbows and scratch eyeballs. |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
September 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed