Meme Monday: Be Courageous!

I am starting a new thing here at Indie Biz Chicks. MEMES. On Mondays! A “meme” – pronounced with a long e, like “theme,”  is basically a blog “topic.” So, I’ll post something here, and you can take the topic, run with it on your blog this week, and when you write a post on that topic, you come back to this post and leave a comment with a link to your post. Make sense?

It will be fun to see what everyone has written, so I hope you start playing this little “game” with me.

The first meme topic is BE COURAGEOUS!

There are so many ways to define those words. For some of you, this could be taking a courageous first step in starting your business. Or maybe you are dealing with a health problem. Making a change in your relationship. Taking the first step in getting healthy by working out or having a salad instead of a twinkie. Whatever it is, I know you are doing something courageous right now, and I want you to blog about it.

The words “be courageous” are something I try to live by. Sometimes, it is something that happens naturally within me. Sometimes, I have to force myself to be courageous. It is sometimes a struggle, but I will tell you that it always leads me to learn a lesson and become a better person.

Here are a few courageous things that I have done, and what I learned from them:

Moving To Alaska: In 2001, I moved to Alaska. I was 23 and had been married for just over two years. My ex really wanted to go, and so I went. I guess I was afraid that I would lose him if I didn’t. To be honest, I really didn’t want to go move at all. I liked Michigan. I liked being around my family and friends. But I went. And I went in a very naive manner: By packing what I could fit into my 2000 Cavalier and driving there — in January.

We arrived safe and sound and I spent the next several months completely bored, depressed,  and hating Alaska. But eventually, I realized that I was there and I better make the most of it. I started driving around and exploring things. I learned a lot about the state. I saw some amazing things; at times the scenery was so unbelievable it felt like I was looking at a book and not real life.

I will never forget what itlooks like to drive down Sterling Highway to Homer when the leaves are changing, or how scary it is to drive through Turnagain Pass in a huge snowstorm, or how the beauty and the smell of that fresh mountain air in the winter could make it feel like my lungs and heart would burst open and shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

Alaska is where I started Indie Biz Chicks. It started out as an idea. I had to learn how to turn that idea into a reality, step by step. I had to learn how to build a website, how to use an FTP program to put the ideas I formed into HTML pages onto the web, and then of course, how to use WordPress when I realized how much better that was than HTML. I learned how to use Photoshop, how to write anchor tags, how to turn Word docs into PDFs and so much more. I learned it all. In my apartment in Alaska.

I didn’t know if anyone would care about the site, if they would take the time to read it, or if I’d ever make any money with it. But I hoped so. I put my heart and soul into this website. I stayed up until 2am and got back up at 6am to start working on it again. I about cried with joy when I had reached 50 newsletter subscribers. Could you believe it? 50 people cared enough to read what I was saying!

The numbers grew. About 90 days after I started my site, I had one magazine asking me to write an article for them, and another one asking to interview me. I couldn’t believe it! Things were happening! I still wasn’t making any money with it, but things were happening.

About 7 months after I started my website, I offered my first workbook for sale. And I sold a few copies. I couldn’t believe it! I was making money. People cared enough about what I was saying that they actually paid to read my words! I basically made enough to buy a dinner and drinks, but hey – I made something!

And now I am able to support myself with the website. Again, I’m not rich. I’m not buying designer clothes or caviar, but I have a roof over my head, my bills are paid, and there’s food on the table.

I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. My courageous acts are not limited to moving to a rural area and learning how to make a website. I’ve done my fair share of scary courageous stuff, like leaving my husband of 10 years and moving back to Michigan. That took a lot of courage. And it took a lot of time to build up that courage.

And after that, it took a lot of courage to try and date again. Dating is not something that gets easier. I hate it. It takes courage each time I do go out on a date. And it would just be a lot easier for me to say to hell with it and stop dating, but I know that I have to keep being courageous.

And of course, there is that lovely Pernicious Anemia of mine. It takes a lot of courage to drive yourself to the hospital after your doctor calls and tells you that you have to go in for a blood transfusion, because you basically have no blood. It takes a lot of courage to get the transfusions and to go through all of the testing to find out what is wrong.

And then when they misdiagnose you, pump out your blood, spin it clean through a machine and pump it back in, which actually makes you sicker… yeah, you get the idea. It takes a lot of courage to keep fighting and to try and stay positive when you talk to your mom on the phone because you know that if you sound freaked out, she’ll get freaked out…

But hey, they got it figured out. It’s a B12 deficiency. The cure is a B12 shot. I can handle that. And I do handle it, each month when I give them to myself.

All of these things were hard in their own way. I can’t say that any of them was harder than another. I had to remind myself to be courageous during each of these struggles. These things made me a stronger person, and for that I am very grateful. Sometimes, being courageous really sucks. But in the end, it’s always worth it.