Sometime last December I said I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then someone told me it had. But recently I realized something.

That wasn’t the other shoe.

Nope. That shoe didn’t drop. Yet. I’m still waiting for it. And, like so many times before I can feel things bubbling just below the surface, glimmering just behind the veil of what’s right in front of me, waiting for the moment to reveal themselves as the truth I always knew was there.

It’s interesting to me how the farther along in life I get, the more clearly I can see ahead of me. The future used to look like this giant blur of overwhelming life that I couldn’t make heads nor tails of, and I felt like I was drowning trying to sort it all out. Sometimes even as I can see more clearly, I stress myself out trying to map out the next weeks, months, years, and plan things down to the last detail. But I am learning to let that level of detail go, trust in the process, put in the hard work along the way, and focus instead on the large goal posts ahead of me. It’s funny how as I do that, things come even more clearly into focus and I am reminded once again, that wasn’t the other shoe, and I smile.

Honesty has a way of always showing itself, and the truth can only be hidden for so long. Eventually we grow – we all do – or else we remain stagnant and watch everyone else around us grow and pass us by, and that is a choice like everything else. Life has a funny way of being so absolutely unbelievable that the only thing you can do is learn to laugh and roll with the punches and realize the best you can do is be a good person and be honest and truthful and that everything else will work itself out. It always does. Along with that other shoe…

Funny how the happier I am, and the more I pour my heart and my soul into my family and my work and my relationships, the better they all become. Things get hard, money gets tight, and instead of stressing and panicking, I put my head down and work harder and focus and get things done and all of a sudden things keep falling into my lap, into place, and even more truths become uncovered. It’s incredible really.

How lucky am I to work a career and live a life that feels like vacation? I get to travel back and forth to Florida and New York, between manatees and mountains, catboats and snowboards, and all the fun in between. Enterprise frequently upgrades me to a free convertible or Jeep to the extent that now friends and colleagues and acquaintances in Florida know I am in town when they see “my Jeep” parked in the driveway. Really! I have the ability to take my kids on an amazing family vacation to my other home, to meet friends and clients that have become family to me, and then to a theme park I haven’t visited since my own childhood ahead of a conference on tourism right in downtown Tampa. A dead-end client waned off (at our recommendation) and is getting ready to be replaced with another similar client but with more income and an even greater cause (they are a nonprofit). We’re working with a new small business and several nonprofits in Citrus County to help them grow and fundraise, while also working on for-profit clients so that we can all grow and prosper together. We’re changing the world one positive act of kindness at a time, and the more we do, the better things get.

It’s amazing how even knowing that other shoe hasn’t dropped just *yet* that it will, soon. That all these conversations going on, and all of these changes happening, soon will make all that out in the open. Amazing how honesty is so intimidating to many, yet freeing to others, and how it inspires change in the most unforeseen yet beautiful ways. Stay beautiful, my friends!