I've often struggled with figuring out where I should be and what I should do. One thing for sure though, is that I am not afraid to fail. Perhaps this is because I was taught a rather sharp lesson about giving up a few days before my 20th birthday, when my best friend committed suicide. He was 19. At 19, you are invincible. Life cannot be THAT bad. But he obviously thought it was.
I recently came across this quote from a young writer from Yale. She passed away before she would ever need to worry about applying what she wrote to her own life...but it is incredibly wise words from a 22 year old.
"What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can
change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for
the first time. The notion that it's too late to do anything is comical.
It's hilarious. We're graduating college. We're so young. We can't, we
MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we
have."
~Marina Keegan
Applies to a mid-30's mom just as well as it does to a college grad. It's never too late to reinvent yourself. It's never too late to try something new. It's never to late to start over or take chances. Sometimes you just need to leap and worry about where you'll land later.
Life is too long and medical advances are only going to make it that much longer (take a moment to think about the advances of the past 50 years and their effect on life expectancy). That is a long long time to not be happy so embrace your happiness now and do what you want to do.