Under Pressure

Yesterday, I was exhausted.

I'm on year six of raising my children alone. Eight are still at home. For years I languished. Stuck. Broken. But my kids kept growing. All these dreams I've had for us, for me, didn't end because my marriage ended, or I couldn't finance them or find time to breathe life into them. They ended because I gave up on them; resigned myself to the fact that life was always going to be hard. So, I put my dreams on paper and figured out what I needed to do to make them happen. I wrote down what it would feel like to accomplish them. I'm not talking about buying stuff or jetting around the world. I'm talking about living!

And yesterday, exhausted, I almost gave in and slept. Then I saw this pinned to the board above my desk: “Don't give up what you LOVE most for what you WANT now.” My bucket list contains one item: I want to live someplace beautiful. Everything else will fall into place from there. Taking a nap in the miserable heat won't get me there. But knocking out that research paper; boxing up clutter to sell/give away; and snuggling with my kids, talking about our first winter in the snow gets me closer. Going to bed early last night with the kids helped, too.

'Love dares you to change the way you care about yourself.'

“Under Pressure” Queen


Jennifer Cox
Ft. Worth, TX

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