Chapter 1

            Today is going to be a great day.  I just know it.  I intend it! I awoke this morning to a whole new world, full of new ideas.  My mind is made up.  Really and truly, my mind has been made up for a very long time.  I am going to turn in my resignation and walk into my destiny.  I prayed about it and I remind myself constantly that it is time to do what I love to do.  I want to write.  I want to sing.  I want to do whatever I feel like doing.  Is that too much to ask?  No, I really don’t think so.  If I don’t go with my heart, I will lose my mind.  Don’t get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong with corporate America.  Corporate America has given me the necessary tools to become who I am today.  My family and friends would say that I am wealthy and some may even insist I am rich.  If we are talking monetarily, then I’d say they are absolutely correct.  In that case, I can’t complain…I won’t complain.  However, I could do better.  Isn’t that what life is about?  The season has changed and so have I.  I have spent many days reminiscing about the summers I spent walking barefoot in the rich red soil of Alabama.  I didn’t have a care in the world.  Money was something that didn’t dictate my family’s happiness during those days.  Maybe I did have a care, but after a while it didn’t matter.  My cares consisted of being a girl in the midst of all the boys in my family.  I didn’t want to accept the notion that girls are meant to be seen and not heard.  I wanted to boss everyone.  I was always in charge. I wanted to play football, baseball and especially doge ball.  I wanted to “pop willies” on my bicycle.  Now, in my mind, that is what being rich is all about. Being rich is about doing whatever makes you feel whole.

As kids, we would go out-doors and play all day long, even in the early parts of winter.  There was nothing like the feeling of being free to run as far as we wanted.  Right in the back of my great grandmother’s house was a huge field.  All the kids in the neighborhood would play all day long back there.  My mom said that when she and her sisters were coming up, they would have baseball games in that very field.  I miss the feeling of those days.  There has to be a better way to make a living while enjoying it as well.  Lord, bring back that feeling I once knew.

            Today is the day.  I don’t care what anybody says either.  I am convinced that my life depends on this very choice.  If I remain at my company another day, I am going to have to be committed to somebody’s insane asylum.  It is that crucial.  I can hear my brother now, “You want to give up a six figure income to do what?”  Then he’ll call my baby brother, while he’s talking to me, just to back up what he was saying.  My baby brother will usually agree with the both of us.  He’s always been that way.  He has told me, behind closed doors, to follow my heart no matter what.  That is how he and his wife live their lives.  We call them our Bohemian/Rosita Tribe.  Where ever my brother and his wife are, the children, all seven of them, are not too far behind.  Whatever they do, they enjoy every moment of it.  Can you imagine waking up with not a care in the world even after looking at seven additional mouths to feed?