heart on my sleeve... or in my hand

By training and trade I am a professional actor and a touring musician. I have been a freelance graphic designer, a high school teacher, a retail manager, an executive assistant to a powerful New York businessman and the same for a vice president of a teaching hospital.  I have taught music to toddlers, I have pulled coffee, I have sold merchandise at Broadway shows, I have temped, subbed, sold, assisted, designed, and yessed. I even worked in a bakery for a week (totally not my bag).  

Risk is familiar to me.  Vulnerability is familiar to me.  Fear is familiar to me.  These are my closest friends and deepest enemies most days.  I have always been the commodity I'm selling.

When I say I am having a mid-life crisis, I am only partially joking.  The truth is that I have reached a saturation point.  I've hit my limit of putting my actual self out to be judged and considered and criticized and torn up and down. Today a neighbor walked her wonderful dogs past the house as I was planting. To be honest, she's probably walked by a lot more, but I've been buried in my podcasts and dirt.  We chatted for a minute and I mentioned for the first time to a complete stranger that starting in late June or July there would likely be flowers for sale on a stand at the house and she said she couldn't wait to walk down and buy flowers when the time came. As she walked away I thought "WHAT did I just do??!"  I don't think I'm unique in that I prepare myself for failure all the time.  That I have already rationalized all of the ways this just won't work.  But I rarely give myself permission to plan for success.

But what if it works...  what if it all works.