Dear Keira...

This was a response to a sweet message sent to me by my husband's awesome cousin, Keira. She was congratulating me on the recent news that a short piece I submitted to be condsidered for publication in a collaborative book on motherhood was selected.

Keira, thank you so much! It's funny, like I said it is just a small snippet in a book full of other authors. But it's amazing what a boost it was to me. When I entered my submissions I remember thinking "This is such a waste of time. No one is ever going to pick me." Every time the people compiling the book would send out update emails saying they hadn't chosen the winners yet because they were working their way through piles of submissions and running them through different judging panels, I thought "I should just mark these emails as spam because even when they do pick the winners, I won't make the cut. Why waste my time reading all these update emails?" Even as I was reading the final list of winners, I was scrolling down, down, down and I was no where to be seen and I thought "See, I was right. I knew I wouldn't make it." Then in the last chapter, second to last on the list of authors, there was my name. I was shocked.

I was the girl no one ever told was capable of doing anything out of the ordinary. No one ever talked to me about grades, or pushing myself or college. My parents are wonderful people, but seriously, I think they were just happy to see me barely graduate from high school. I have spent my adult life scratching and working hard for any feathers in my cap. But in the back of my mind, I knew I wasn't really good at anything. The directionless girl starving for self-esteem from my teenage years haunted me, chased me.

The first glimmer of hope in myself came after I ran my first and singular marathon. I wasn't an athlete. I wasn't a runner. But I was tired of being a quitter. And so I literally ran away from that girl. That doubter. I ran away from the voices in my head that told me I wasn't strong enough to do hard things. That finish line was a new start.

But demons are hard to keep away...

So I could finish something. So what. I was still considerably dumber than those around me.

The demons were on my back again. So I went back to school last year with four kids, which in itself is completely nuts. But I had again found myself toe-to-toe with a breaking point in my life where I had something to prove. Priority number one in sticking it to those demons was, in addition to other coursework, was to start with Math classes. I hadn't been in school in over a decade and I was pretty sure I was crazy. I had previously repeatedly flunked out of Math classes in high school, because let's face it, I'm an idiot.

I worked my tail off and studied until the wee hours of the morning. I literally cried tears of frustration and pulled on my hair. I wasn't one of those who's mind was mathematically wired. But the shadows of underachievement stalked after me and so I pushed forward, in hopes of getting out of their reach.

Report cards came back and I got straight A's. The next semester, the classes got harder and once again I was able, through sheer grit, to pull off straight A's again.

We ended up moving and so I wasn't able to keep going to school. But those two semesters taught me that maybe being a worthless idiot was a lie I sold myself. Maybe it wasn't that no one never believed in me. Maybe their belief was just strangled by my own unbelief and went unrecognized.

Writing is something I am not good at, it's something that I enjoy. Any dreams I had of ever getting published or writing a children's book were ridiculous pipe dreams. Uneducated, unextraordinary people like myself don't have their loftiest dreams come true. They die with sweet visions of could-have-beens floating through the windows of their mind, knowing their life found meaning in other ways.

But seeing my name in the Twelfth Chapter of that book, which is ironically about 'The Power of Moments,' was the hammer to my thick skull that someone else saw the value in what I have to bring to this world. I know I will never be the fastest, I will never be the strongest, the smartest or the most decorated. But dang it, I matter. I'm worth something. I have something to contribute and share.

I don't have to be scared to try or to shoot for my loftiest dreams. Because at the end of the day I know I am of worth. Not because somebody else told me so, but because finally for the first time in my whole life I believe it for myself. And even if I fail and go down in a burning ball of flames, I have the confidence of knowing that at least failure teaches you sweeter lessons than the apathy of never giving a rip to push yourself.

Seeing my name at the end of that list triggered a new starting line in my life. One where I, finally in my heart of hearts, believe that I can run without the companionship of constant, nagging doubt. But rather I can run towards my dreams with lungs full of hope, breathing to life who I really can become.