I think this has been a long time coming for me.

I’ve been lost lately. Like really lost. And I don’t like to admit things like this out in public.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs trying to find a “magic solution” to help me get back on track. In my heart of hearts, I KNOW there is no “magic solution” and I’ve always detested people who thought that.

I guess I’ve been looking for inspiration… motivation… some way to figure out what the hell I should be doing.

I’m 42 years old and feel like my life is starting to slip away from me. If I were to die tomorrow, what would I have really accomplished besides giving birth to my kids?

What would I be known for? Who would my life have impacted? What stories did I tell? Who did I help along the way? WHO THE HELL WAS I?

It scares me because I don’t have a good answer for any of those questions.

For most of my life I’ve been scared of things… a lot of things… all of those fears really equate to one – the FEAR of REALLY living.

On the flip side, I’ve also done things that other people would never do – like start a business from home when my twins were 3 months old.

During my blog readings, I’ve been coming up against the same thing over and over again… and that is to just

BE YOURSELF – Put YOU out there and don’t care what other people think.

THAT IS SO HARD FOR ME.

Not that I really care what other people think of me. I don’t really. I’m definitely not one of those people who are constantly on Facebook or Twitter asking for other’s people’s opinions on EVERYTHING before making a decision. I can’t stand that.

It’s more that I don’t want to bring attention to myself. If I just blend in and “be normal” then I won’t bring on dissension or haters or people that think I’m stupid or whatever…

The Blog Post that Changed My Thinking

This blog post by Brian Gardner got me to take the first step of putting myself out there – his “alter-ego” wrote it… HA!

He is certainly way more successful and better known in his industry than I am in mine and he has been struggling with putting his “real persona” out there for public consumption. Just being himself.

His bio really resonated with me. Especially the part where he created a business that was working him into the ground. He ended up partnering with another group of people to take that ONE PERSON DOING EVERYTHING away letting him focus on what he really wanted to do.

That was me with RTech Solutions back in 2004. I had built RTech into a decent business for myself – where I was actually paying myself a decent salary monthly – a salary that was on track to bring in more than my husband was making at the time. But the STRESS of that business was costing me my sanity. I was always online. Always working. Always stressed – even on vacations. I tried to find a partner but in the end I just couldn’t give up control of my baby. So instead of doing what Brian did, I chose to sell RTech and walk away.

I don’t think I’ve ever really found my back from that. Not that I want to be in the web design/hosting business.

I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT.

But RTech was a legitimate business with customers that depended on me AND where I was earning a real living.

THAT’S what I’m struggling to get back to… the “Real Business” part.

After reading Brian’s post about changing his PERSONAL blog around and starting to just write whatever the hell HE WANTED to write instead of what he thought others thought or wanted, I started thinking about doing the same.

I’m definitely in an industry – digital scrapbooking – where putting the real you out there could get a lot of push back – A LOT. Women can be catty, mean and just plain bitches.

I am not much of a people person. I tend to be a loner – partly because I’m very shy in person and partly because casual acquaintances just don’t appeal to me. I hate small talk. I’ll say “Hi” and be friendly but I don’t tend to elaborate much past that. I think it takes 4-5 times of talking to someone very very very casually before I’ll say anything of real substance to the person.

The internet helps me with that some. While I’m not outgoing and won’t post every piece of minutia about my life on Facebook or my blog, I will say more on my blog or in an e-mail than I might if I met you in person.

I can write and talk freely when I’m comfortable with what I’m talking about. If I’m not comfortable (and that’s more often than I’d care to admit), I don’t say a damn word – even at family gatherings. My “family” outside of my husband and kids don’t really know much about me.

I’m tired of hiding

I really am.

I’m tired of making a commitment to myself and then not following through on it.

I’m tired of living day to day without a purpose. I am so ready for a change.

I’m taking the first step towards this self-evolution starting with this blog. It’s been close to two years since I wrote anything on here and that’s about to change.

I absolutely loved the clean look of Brian’s blog when reading it on my iPad. I loved that it was so simple – just the post – no sidebar extravaganza crap running down the sides, no extra fluff… I wanted to buy that theme and install it here. But it’s currently not available for purchase. I have never been a Genesis user. I’ve thought about it but never jumped. I decided to purchase the Sixteen Nine theme and give Genesis a try. I can’t say I’m thrilled with Genesis. There is definitely a learning curve and I still have to get my head around working with a framework. It took me way too long to figure out simple things like removing the category display from each post. But in the end I was able to tweak Sixteen Nine enough to look a lot like his current site.

For now… I really love the simplicity of this new look. I am happy with it.

This is me.

This is who I am in this moment.