My Biggest Secret

Don't tell anyone. I have a big secret. It's my biggest secret ever.

My secret is that I'm planning, and slowly but surely implementing my own secret prison break. I'm slowly digging a hole in my prison cell wall, the same way that Tim Robbins did in the movie "Shawshank Redemption", covering it up with a poster so that nobody can see it, getting rid of the dug out dust by putting it in my pockets and taking it out with my hands, and letting it slip through my fingers during recess, when nobody's watching.

With time, patience and perseverance that hole will be big enough for me to pass thru and access the secret tunnels that lead to the outside world, and ultimately to my freedom. Nobody that knows me personally will know about my big secret until I think it's a good time to uncover it.

rrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnggggggg

The alarm goes off. It's 5:45 am. Time to get up and start the daily routine: Wash up; get on the treadmill; jog 1/2 hour; wake my husband and the kids up; prepare breakfast; see everybody off to school and work; and prepare myself to go back to my prison cell: The dreaded office!

I'd say that since about the time that I graduated from college, some 20 years ago, I've been in what I call my own "incubation" period during which I've been unknowingly snatched and locked up in a shell which I'd like to refer to as the popular term, the "rat-race".

"That's a pretty long incubation period there!" "What a waste of life", you might say to yourself.

Well it hasn't really been a total waste at all, but on the contrary I see this "incubation" period of mine as a necessity. A period I had to go through to discover some secret skills that were dormant within me during all this time.

You see, I graduated from college after studying something which I wasn't even sure I wanted to study. But due to the insistence of my parents and my then boyfriend (now husband) I pressed on and finally graduated.

Then I got caught up in "life".

I got married, had 2 children, built a custom house and established a family owned business from scratch, while also keeping my full time job in an office.

So I never had the chance to ask myself what I really wanted to do about my professional life. I was just too busy living to stop and ponder.

Even though I really accomplished a lot together with my husband in many different aspects of our lives, I feel like I was just going it along, playing life by ear, without any real plans for the future. I was caught in the rat-race without even realizing it.

Fast forward some 20 years.... Now the kids are both teenagers. They are not so dependant on mommy, and mommy gets to have her quite time when she can stop and think about what it is that she really wants to spend the rest of her days doing. It has to be something which I would enjoy doing even after the dust settles and the kids are out of the house, and at the same time something which would be lucrative for me.

I am now certain that I have found that "something" in article writing, as well as internet and affiliate marketing.

So now I am secretly pursuing my new career. Nobody knows that I'm doing this. I haven't told anyone about my secret plans. Not my family, not my friends, and certainly not my colleagues at work. It's my big secret. My biggest secret ever. And I have to secretly hide the dust that I dig out. In other words, whenever I finish my daily work in the office, whatever free time I have left I don't get up and go gossip with my colleagues like I used to. I stay put infront of my computer and take advantage of that free time to read, read, read. Learn, learn, and learn! My colleagues are all wondering what is wrong with me. Why I'm so quiet lately. Why I don't gossip anymore. "What is WRONG with you, woman?!" So that's when I have to cover my dust. I just grin and say something random, and then turn the subject around and ask them what is wrong with them..... That usually gets them to start thinking about their own misery (and off my back so I can get back to my secret career!)

The satisfaction of realizing that you have finally found something that you really enjoy doing everyday is such a great feeling. It fuels my energy and boosts my spirit.

And knowing that it's my big secret makes all the more exciting!