Laina Turner-Molaski

Today is Tuesday September 8^th, 2009. The day after Labor Day which for me is the start of my fall New Year. It means a few more months left in the year in which I can refocus my energies and get down to business. Recommitting to reaching those goals I felt were all so important on January 1^st. This year my refocus could almost be overwhelming as it has probably been the most interesting year of my life thus far. I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked and in some instances have almost backslid from 2008. But after much thinking I realized you do sometimes have to take a few steps back to make even bigger strides forward and that is how I am going to view things. As daunting as it may seem.

My goals this year were simple. To finally publish my fiction book, to achieve some better inner peace, and to have a better work/life balance. I have pushed my book out to February 2010 for good reason. To make it better and to do things the right way. That goal won’t be reached but I’m ok with it. The other two goals are not so black and white. I like things neat, tidy, and measurable but I have to allow myself to be ok with the fact that it’s not always possible to have things that way. What I have to ask myself is if I have made progress in these areas and if I have learned anything from the experience, and I have. What I have learned is that life isn’t neat and tidy. It can be, but it also can be messy and dirty which is what makes it life. I have spent most of my life trying to conform and putting aspects of my life in neat and tidy boxes. The business woman box, the wife box, the mother box, the teacher box, the writer box to name a few and once I got done with those there wasn’t much left for the Laina box. In fact, I got to where I wasn’t even sure what should be in the Laina box as I had lost part of her in the search to be all of those other things.

The pressure I felt to be the best at all I did and live up to what I perceived as others expectations of me (to which I have found were mostly my perceptions, not reality) was unreal and in a lot of ways in contradiction to the real me inside. As I started this self discovery I was able to narrow those boxes down to four. Business women, college professor, fiction writer, and mother. As you can see there still wasn’t a Laina box. To make it even more convoluted I decided to write my fiction under a pen name as to not infringe on my academic persona. There I was again trying to keep things separate. God forbid another PhD would find out I wrote romantic/mystery fiction.

A few weeks ago as I was trying to keep myself from going crazy (an ongoing struggle) and I had an epiphany. I was stressed and miserable because I still was trying to be “things” and not myself. Laina is all these boxes, these boxes aren’t Laina. I have to stop defining who I am by what I am because who I am, shapes all those boxes whether I want to admit it or not. Great revelation but then I got stuck on the now what part. Coming out to be who I am and not what I prefer to project is scary. For me anyways. But for once instead of over thinking it (as I have been accused of on occasion), I decided to take the plunge and today is a new me.

I am who I am…no excuses and no disclaimers.

I made myself a new website over the weekend to embrace my new self. It’s not perfect and that’s part of why I am using it today. It is what it is. Like it or not, I’m not doing it to be perfect. I’m doing it to be real as I am finally going to embrace my reality. What can you do to embrace yours?

Laina