I'm No Master, Yet

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I’m starting a new class on Wednesday. I am not excited about it either, Managing Organizational Processes, YAY, Fun! I’m dreading this class with my whole soul. When I entered this MBA program, I literally said out loud, “I know this is going to be hard, but it will be worth it.” However, now that I’m in the thick of it, I wish I would have sat a little longer on the first part of that statement. I told my husband after I finish this if I even mention the letters Ph.D. to slap me. Although he would never do that, I genuinely need for him to find an effective way to snap me out of it.

I hate school! I always have. I dropped out of undergrad twice. It sounds awful, but I couldn’t stay focused on school. I was chasing my writing and acting career so hard and I believed that anything that wasn’t adding to that was getting in the way of me “making it”. I’m laughing as I write, making it, because what is that really? I was able to accomplish practically everything I set out to do but I never felt like I was even close to “making it” and more than that, I wasn’t happy. Don’t get me wrong, I had lots of moments of happiness but just sitting still, just being, living in my own skin, I was not satisfied. I thought that once I “made it”, that’s when I’d be happy. My quest for success was a bottomless pit filled with alcohol to ease my disappointment for the slow pace it was taking to reach this success destination.

There was a point in my career that I hosted this live show which eventually branched out to radio called, Poetz Corner. The live show was filmed in this club downtown, I became friends with the owner and all of the bartenders. Every week before each show I would have at least two drinks before the show started. I would drink during each cut and by the end would go home completely drunk. I did this every week. The show had a nice following, we were booked out weeks in advance, my name was generating buzz and maybe from the outside looking in, it was a success. But not to me, I could hardly remember the filming half the time because I was so drunk. The radio station that the show was on was about 45 minutes away from my house, I would pick up a six-pack of wine and drink all six by the time I reached the station, so needless to say, I did those shows drunk too. It is only by the grace of God that I am still alive to write about this after all the drinking and driving.

It wasn’t until after I had my son that I started to see the beauty in me without anything else. Without all the noise and the constant searching for praise and success. I took a hiatus from it all. I stopped chasing this idea that I had created in my mind of what success was and started to really look at who I was and what I was doing to myself when no one else was looking. Having my son gave me a new perspective on life, that’s when I decided to go back to school. This time the success I was in search of was not for me at all, it was for him. I wanted to be a good example to him and show him that his mother finished what she started, so after 18 years of running, I finally got my bachelor’s degree. A year later an opportunity for me to get my master’s came up that I couldn’t refuse and now, here I am. This time I'm not doing it just for my kids but I'm doing it for me. Now I’m finding success every time I work on a paper, complete a homework assignment or when I just study. I feel successful in the mere fact that I am not giving up and I’m not drunk. I’m no master, yet but I’m working on accepting that success is in each moment of joy, each overcoming of pain, every time I cry in the bathroom, shake it off, and get back to work that’s the real success. And continuing to try to be better, well, I am a master of that.