Everything will be okay in the end.

I recently had a visit at my mom’s. My mom is an almost 70-year young babe, who goes dancing with her girlfriends every Saturday, works part time to fund her annual vacations down South, and manages a home on her own as a widow of almost 14 years.

She likes feel good movies, as most of us do, for the singular reason that it gives us hope; hope that where we are now, doesn’t need to be where we have to ‘end’ and that somewhere, out there, someone’s life can compare to our own so we feel, just a wee bit, better of our circumstances.

We watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. With my 4 year old son passed out due to exhaustion upstairs and my nine year old daughter beside me, we sat down to watch, in my opinion, the most ridiculously-titled movie, ever. But, as we all know, Scale Warriors, we don’t judge a book/movie by its cover.

This movie is lovely. Full Stop. Without going into too much detail, life brings a group of ‘older’ English folk to a rickety, almost crumbling hotel in the middle of India, hoping that their next steps will be great. It’s set against a narrative through one of the character’s blog she is writing – mainly for those back home to read her experiences.

I had many takeaways from this movie – the most obvious being I am my mother’s daughter. Aside from that, all these characters were able to change their paths in a moment and in that moment, while crazy scary, they were moving towards a better version of themselves. It was obvious, at any age, at any stage of life, change can happen.

I have been struggling greatly over the last few months. It wasn’t until I saw a picture of myself at my daughter’s birthday dinner that I realized how much of a struggle I was truly experiencing.

I am cutting out a huge part of this post as I am not yet ready to share, but I will be. For now just know it has been a struggle for me over the last five months. A real struggle and one I have not yet experienced in my own story.

But no excuses – I owned up to it. This is all me. I am not about to pass responsibility on to my schedule, or being a mom, or my father’s diagnosis with two cancers, or my financial woes, or fill in any effin’ excuse possible. While I have had others around me promptly make those excuses for me, I have not. ME. ALL ME. And as it was me who got me here, it would only be me who would have to get me out.

Back to the movie. This quote summed up what I am experiencing:

But it’s also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing; has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But, perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So, we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said “Everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, then trust me, it’s not yet the end.”

I have stopped taking risks, stopped celebrating the changes that were happening, and feared what was coming next – a life of no limitations. While everyday over the last few years I felt closer to my ‘end’, this major set back was just that – a set back and a reminder I had not yet reached my end.

(and by ‘end’ here I am referring to goal(s). I don’t truly believe we are ever at the ‘end’ of something unless it’s a bad relationship or hair style choice. But even those things tend to haunt us! 🙂 )

Much like our cast of character – the divorcee, gay man who finds his first love, widower, single heart looking for a match and even the ambitious hotel-owner that follows his dream – all these people had set backs, major ones at that. But being in the moment, celebrating and embracing these changes, struggles and revelations only brought them to a better place in their own journeys.

What does this mean for me? Well, I don’t need to travel to India to realize my next step. My next step is the same first step I took three years ago when I started this gig; believing I can and getting a game plan together.

I believe everything will be alright in the end… whatever that end may be, because if it’s not alright now, it doesn’t mean it can’t be. It just means I’m not there yet. And trust me, I’m okay with that.