What, like it's hard?

Normal Broken has been out in the world for three months. In the beginning, I was motivated to get the word out because, holy hell, I wrote a book! It was celebratory and exciting. Lately, though, it’s felt like one of those dreams where you are trying to run but your legs aren’t working and everyone and their grandmother is passing you but your feet just won’t go any faster.     

I’ve been in this place before: The in-between. It’s the place where you’ve achieved something great, but the next level up is even more daunting that the first. I got here in my acting career when I’d booked national commercials and had lines in TV shows but still couldn’t support myself without a restaurant job. I got here in my hospitality/events career… right before I had to turn down that director-level job to move to Chicago. And I’m here once again with a book on the shelves and a handful of speaking gigs on the calendar and the next level up feeling so far away that I don’t even know what it looks like.

I could go on and on about my insufferable ambition, how nothing I achieve will ever be enough. I can *try* and talk myself into being satisfied with the undeniably incredible life I have. But let’s be honest, verbal affirmation is my love language, I am enneagram type 3 (the achiever), eldest daughter, who is also an Aries. Basically, I’m hardwired to crave success, (or whatever I deem success to look like) … and I’m screwed.

I’ve concluded that it is almost as exhausting to make peace with my life as it is (aka try to rewire myself) as it is to hustle and grind and *maybe* become who I *think* I want to be (aka GIVE ME ALL THE SUCCESS).

And let’s be real, I am NOT an electrician.

The problem of late, is that I keep moving the goal post on myself. Yesterday, I was getting down on myself for not hustling more, for not forcing myself to sit down and work on the proposal for book two. For, essentially, rolling with life as it is - which, quite frankly, is still a lot. But because I wasn’t actively trying for more I questioned if I was lazy and started questioning how I had even gotten to where I am.

I mean, if I could get a book published and speak at events, I’m sure anyone could do it.

“What, like it’s hard?”

Thank you, Elle Woods for being the perfectly pink personification of my imposter syndrome.

But then I reminded myself that two years ago all I wanted to do was get a book traditionally published. I was rejected by DOZENS of agents before getting that “yes”. And then finding an editor was even harder! So hard, in fact, that Normal Broken wasn’t even the first book I pitched! I had to come up with a completely new book proposal to make this dream come true.

But I fucking did it! I did ALL THAT. (Not to mention surviving everything that came before and would make up said book.)

Can we all just stop for a moment and give ourselves some credit? Because I think 21 year old Kelly would be pretty impressed with 41 year old Kelly. I mean she would be a little disappointed that we don’t have an Emmy or an Oscar on the shelf, but I think overall she would understand and respect. She would also be terrified of what those 20 years were going to entail but let’s not look too deep into this exercise. The point is we are surviving.

Life threw us asteroids and cratered what we thought our lives were going to look like and we are still here, still going, still surviving, still succeeding. Let that be the confidence boost we need to achieve our next goal, whatever it may be. Maybe that is to survive another day, or maybe it is so much more.

I kind of love how this blog post turned into the Friday pep-talk you didn’t know you needed. It is not what I was planning on but it feels right. So, in case you need to hear it today, you are fucking awesome, I am unbelievably impressed by you, and I cannot freaking wait to see what you do next.

Now, in the words of some fabulous drag queen somewhere, go slay the day!

ID: Kelly smiling and looking at the camera. She is wearing a white sweater with a simple ladybug image. behind her is a framed poster of the Normal Broken book cover set on top of wicker boxes.