Loneliness, Hard Work, and Giving Thanks

I am inundated with thoughts as I sit down to write this blog post. I am unsure how title it correctly; I want to write about my loneliness, finally working hard, and giving thanks for the new and surprising blessings in my life. It is always so easy to focus on the negative going on in our lives. I find myself doing that sometimes and I shouldn't. That is not how I operate. That is not how I live my life.

I am lonely a lot of times now. I would say I have been feeling this way for a little over a month. The "official" definition of 'lonely' is: being sad because one has no friends or company. I feel a bit dramatic calling myself that, but at times, it feels true. I am a natural born extrovert, but I enjoy being alone as well. However, when you live alone, you get a lot of time to be by yourself so I enjoy being around people when I can. It happens everyday at work and then everyday at the gym. A lot of times now, even though I am around a lot of people, I feel really alone. I am happy with my life - I am excited. I work constantly, be it at work or my weight loss journey, I am very productive, but I am lonely. I am not complaining, I am simply stating a fact. 

Here is a downfall about me: I have always worried more about a social life than working hard. When I started high school and all throughout my life since then, my social life has always come before anything. Since I dream so big and so hard, that is probably the worst things I could do. I have huge things I want to do and all of them are really, really hard. I want to become an author - write a memoir as well as fictional series, grow this blog and eventually create and sell fitness products (like a cookbook, fitness clothing, and fitness tools (health journals, exercise guides, etc), and travel doing motivational speeches. That is a lot of hard damn work right there. Obtaining those things is going to require a lot sacrifice, hard work, and long hours. Talk about "blood, sweat, and tears". For about a month now, for the first time in my life, I have really started working hard to accomplish those dreams.

And I realize what a lonely path I have chosen. 

However, I feel it is lonely in a good way though. There have been so many changes in my personal life right now, that I really can't keep up anymore. My father is terminally ill, his wife, my step-mother, just lost her sister, my mother is going through a lot of issues within herself and her life (which really breaks me down), and my grandmother is having such a hard time with my grandfather who recently fell into a glass table and broke his leg, knee, and cut his body really bad.  My immediate family has so much going on right now and so many issues of their own. Then there are friends. I am the type of person who considers friends, family. Growing up, I was always with my friends on holidays. I do not have a big family so I have always been a girl who is surrounded by a ton of friends. I am 24 years old - soon to be 25, and having friends now is not the same as it was a few years ago. Most everyone I know is engaged, getting married, and having children. They have their own lives and families now, and being a friend is not what it used to be. Then there are really close friends who change. There are friends who you love more than anything, you think you know them inside and out, and it turns out you really didn't. It's truly shocking when you love someone so much and one day you realize how little they love you. One of my good blogger friends Nadine said to me the other day "I really found out who my friends were in my 20's". 

With all of that being said, it has been a difficult transition for me over the past month. For the first time in my life, I am truly becoming independent and strong on my own to feet. I have lived alone and been financially independent since I was 20 years old, but I have always been surrounded by a big social circle. Now I am doing more things alone. I am not afraid to do that anymore like I used to be. If I want to do something, I don't depend on anyone, I go do it. I have been disappointed a lot lately. It is hard sometimes, but I know it has made me a stronger person.

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to do big things. It's easy to dream and I did plenty of it. That is all I have done my entire life. My dreams were always pushed to the side though because it requires so much hard work. I had the ideas, but I did not want to sacrfice anything to obtain them. I was too caught up in the "now". What was I doing this weekend? What are we doing tonight? Plan this trip, plan that trip. That was all that mattered to me.

Now I want all of that to change.

I am beginning to understand that if I throw myself into my work, make sacrifices now, and at least try for all of these dreams and aspirations I have, in the future, I will be able to do all of the "fun" things I want. I remember when I was 18 years old, I was working at a typical corporate company part-time while I was going to school. I only lasted there 3 months, I hated it. Everyday there, people looked miserable. They complained constantly about their jobs and lives, they gossiped a lot about each other, and lived for Friday. I don't want my life to end up that way. And if I don't, I have to do something about it.

Thankfully, my current job keeps growing. I have been at my company over 6 months now. This job changed my life. The story of how I landed this position is a crazy one... and someone up above was looking out for me when I got it. Obtaining this job launched my weight loss journey and really helped me believe in myself after I had forgotten what that was like. I feel a part of something bigger than myself, I am stimulated, challenged, and motivated. I am given immense freedom and creativity, and I am getting assigned bigger and bigger projects and tasks. I want to keep growing and improving myself there, losing weight, and working on my other plans (such as this blog, of course) at night and on the weekends. For the first time in my life, that is what I have been doing and even though it is really lonely, I feel like if I keep working hard and trying, something big will finally happen.

That leads me to giving thanks, even though my heart is heavy a lot of times. I am thankful to have this change in my personal life because it is very new to me. Sometimes I have wanted to break down, and the tears have flown, but I refuse to let it tear me apart. I am seeing this "loneliness" as a time to better myself and finally try for the life that I feel is meant for me.

What a whirlwind of a week!

Hello Friday. Hello blog. I am exhausted.

I mentioned on Sunday that I would be a little MIA due to a nonstop week at work. It turned out to be busier than I thought. I have been planning a big company event for over a month now. I have done it all myself, too. Which I love that my President gives me that freedom. Event planning is serious business though; one can easily forget about all of the trivial details that you need to pay attention too! Thankfully, it all wonderfully came together. I did all of it in heels, too. My feet are swollen today. 

Monday was a pretty normal day. A little busier than usual, but not too bad. I worked out after and made sure to get in bed early. Tuesday, the chaos began. Executives were coming into town, all of the department managers were finishing presentations and needing assistance, I had to put packets together, and the list could go on. One of fun tasks on my to-do list? Shopping for the strategic meeting dinner for Wednesday. I do the shopping - I do the choosing, ha!

Wednesday was a long, long day. I worked 13 hours. It was the day before our event. I spent most of the day at my bosses farm home about an hour south of Charlotte in rural, SC. The executives were there for an offsite strategic planning meeting. I was there assisting, recording meeting minutes, and other random things. My President told me that he wanted me to create and run a blog for the company that will act as a liaison between clients, potential clients, and employees. I was very surprised to hear that, but how fitting, huh? I am so, so excited about this and I hope to "blow it out of the water". I will absolutely be putting my heart and soul into that for sure - more on that next week. Around 3PM I left the farm house, drove back Charlotte, ran some errands, did a run through of the event at the hotel, helped setup, then drove back to farm house in SC. After the meeting finished, we grilled out and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Wednesday night I finally got to bed close to midnight. Oy. Yesterday was the big company event! I found my favorite headband that has been missing for about two months so I had to wear it. I knew then that it was going to be a good day. 

The meeting went great. The hotel was incredibly beautiful, we had a wonderful view, and stellar service. I did not want it to end. We had creative presentations, team building activities, games and prizes, and I felt like it really brought us together as a company. I am really tired, but I will miss all of the planning and meetings that went along with this. 

Now I'm ready to knock out this day at work and get some rest and relaxation this weekend. Plus catch up on your guys blogs. Don't forget about my Quest Nutrition giveaway going on right now! Get your entries in!

A Season of Change...

What a week. What a life.

I feel like I have so much I want to say right now. I want to write my situation down on my blog, get out on paper, and get it out of my head. But I can't do that right now. There is a lot of uncertainty in my life and I feel a lot of hard changes coming. If there is one quote that has always stuck with me in life, it is this one:

and sometimes, a lot of times in life, I do not feel I follow this. I used too. But over the years I have transformed. I do not always like the person I have become. This probably does not make sense. Sometimes when your heart is speaking, your brain does not always translate the words and the feelings like it should. 

More soon on that. Now, back to this week.

It has been a pretty quiet and calm week. I have been battling mood highs and lows because of all the change coming forth in my job. I had a job interview yesterday. It is for the Executive Assistant/Administration Director to the CEO of a Real Estate company. The CEO is an amazing woman. She was voted one of Charlotte's 50 most influential women and CEO's, and has won many, many awards in the real estate world. She started her company from the ground a mere 7 years ago and has grown it extraordinarily. 

Yesterday was finally the interview. After completing an essay on why they should hire me followed by a personality test, I was called in for the interview.

When I went into it, I was pretty calm. I am used to interviews at this point. I have been trying on and off for a year for a new position. But in walks the CEO. She is very stern and intimidating. She knows what she wants and how she wants it done. Those are key components for a CEO so I do not know why I was surprised. 

She had a thick stack of papers in her hands. She sat down in the conference room across the table from me and dove right into asking the standard questions. They were very difficult to answer. You guys probably know how that is. Describe a time where the outcome of a specific project did not align to the clients requests and how you elected to rectify the situation. Ugh, I hate that. I'm not good at that. She asks all of those type of questions for each job I have ever held. It was not going that great. I stuttered some, did not know exactly what to say, and I was just ready to walk out of the interview. Literally in the middle of her asking those questions, just get up and walk out. But I didn't.

Next we get to the paper filled with words. Upon her reading each word, I had to rate myself a 1-6. One meaning I'm not good at all and 6 meaning that I am superstar. I was doing OK I thought and then she says the word "pragmatic". I had no idea what that meant. She did not either, really. She thought about it for a second and kind of explained it. And I believe the definition is "your ability to think logically and realistically". I could Google to verify, but who cares.

Just as I thought the interview was a complete bomb and a complete waste of an uncomfortable outfit, she says the word "ambition". 1-6? I don't think think so. I say 7. She laughs and it breaks the ice a little. She tells me I did a good job on the test. Then we get down to the basics. I get to tell her all about me, my life, and what I want. I told her how I admired her accomplishments so much and I want to strive to be like that. I also talked a little about her company since I did my research and how I would fit and be able to help her grow her business even more.

Gosh, being an interview is the biggest sales pitch of ones life, ha.

After an hour and a half, we close our conversation. She has had the job I interviewed for posted for a month and a half. She did this because she wants to ensure she finds the right person. She also added that she deleted thousand's of Resume's sent to her because they did not follow the directions on the job posting. You could not just send them your Resume, you had to write the essay on why you would be a good fit then attach your Resume. She told me to set up reference appointments with each of my references so she could call them. She then added that as long as the references went well, she would do a criminal and credit background check, and be in touch.

My current supervisor told me he just got off the phone with her and she told him that he provided one of the best references she has ever heard. Now we wait. We will see what happens next.

Other than the interview, this week has been usual. Working and the gym. Marquis and I are leaving for Myrtle Beach on Saturday because we have a meeting with a franchise he is considering buying. It will be a short trip though, we are coming back Sunday. 

How have you guys been this week?