I was going to write a review on a restaurant I visited while in Atlanta this week, but I decided to shelve that for another day (coming soon though, promise!). I wanted to get some more important words down here first. Now. For you. For me. I wanted to capture the energy I felt from the conference I just came back from. To give you some of what was given to me.
The conference had 12 attendees. All women. Strong personalities. Confident. Passionate. Joyful. There were many other executives from BlogHer, Coca-Cola and the PR firm in addition to the twelve of us, maybe thirty or so at any given time. 99% women. All with a common thread. Everyone lived out loud.
When it comes to assembling a group of women, it’s anybody’s guess as to how well everyone will gel together. Big personalities can quickly overshadow wallflowers. Divas can rule the room. Sarcasm can turn into meanness. But this group? Amazing. Purely and simply amazing. Somehow the personalities all worked magically together. Camraderie was born. Friendships were formed. Inspiration was plentiful. Quite possibly magical.
I consider myself a reasonably confident and outgoing person. But I’ve changed a lot over the past few years. I say yes. To a lot. A lot more than I used to. Particularly to that which scares me. After The Ex left, I made one very quick decision. Quite possibly the most important one. I wasn’t going to let his decision dominate the rest of my life. Nor my kids. Let me explain.
There are a lot of challenges when it comes to being a single mom. Challenges regular moms have, but exacerbated ten-fold. I’ve talked about this before. It was ultimately most important to me that my kids (and I) not miss out on anything because of the new shift in our family dynamic. Certain tasks and adventures will be harder, but I will not say no. We will not miss out. We will live out loud.
I will say yes. To journeys that make me squirm. To things that may be hard. To the path less traveled. Because we all deserve more yesses. Going down the shore for the weekend with the kids and Eli in the car presents many challenges. The biggest one of which is what happens when we need to make a pit stop? I can’t leave the dog in the car with the temps soaring past 100 degrees. I can’t leave him outside. It might seem like a tiny thing, but these are examples that we sometimes take for granted when we have partners. But I didn’t want to miss out on our weekends down the shore. So we figure it out. I say yes.
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