Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.

For the longest time, I have been feeling as though I'm in limbo. Like I'm not "where I'm supposed to be". Like I'm not "doing what I'm supposed to be doing". 

It leaves me feeling restless and dissatisfied. 

I step back and look at my life and think, this is it? Is this all there is to life? A taxing, stressful job and a little row house in northeast Philadelphia? This is what I've worked so hard for up to this point? My college degree and his skilled trade and our six-figure income only get us this? This is the best we can do for us - for our daughter? This can't be all there is to life. 

Don't get me wrong. I know I'm blessed. I have a beautiful, spirited, amazing daughter, and I have a strong rock of a husband. I have a large, crazy, loud family and my friends are true anchors. I have a job, and my husband has a job, and we have a place to live. I am blessed, and this is not lost on me. 

But there are still areas of my life where frustration and dissatisfaction remain. I need to fix this. 

About a month ago we had a realtor out to give us some input on putting our house on the market. The feedback was discouraging. We would likely have to bring money to the settlement table and essentially pay someone to buy our house. So we made the decision to wait a year and see where we were. We talked about renting the house and moving in with my parents to save money. We talked about renting the house and getting a second mortgage for a new house. We even talked about letting our house go into foreclosure. 

But I really don't want to do any of that. All our plans, put on hold. We were being held hostage by this little row house in northeast Philly. There was no bright future for us. All the options were risky, undesirable, or time-consuming. 

We were hostages. Stuck. 

I drew up a meager budget and savings plan for the next year. If we stuck to it, we'd have over $10k saved to do something next year. Key words: "if we stuck to it". Anyone reading this knows that the middle class struggle is real. The reality would probably be that we'd save nothing at all. 

But yesterday, my rock of a husband called me at work to pitch a solution to me. As he spoke, I could feel the hope rise up into my chest. I saw that light at the end of the tunnel start to flicker into life. For the first time in a long time, my future did not seem so stressful and bleak. There was an end in sight. We hung up the phone and I broke down in tears. The solution he proposed would require him to make a sacrifice, and the fact that this man would make this sacrifice for me, and his daughter, just to get us out and get us started on the path we are supposed to be on... It brought me to my knees. 

So now, my dream is alive again. The light is on at the end of this long and winding tunnel and I am racing towards it. There are so many other things in my life that have become more bearable, knowing that the end is in sight. I really feel like I'm standing on the brink of something big, and my life - the life I am supposed to have - where I am supposed to be - what I am supposed to do - is about to finally come together. 

I can finally see it. And that light is so bright and so beautiful.