Today is the anniversary of my hire date at my current office job. (All our personnel documents have it at the top, otherwise I doubt I would remember it.) I don’t normally celebrate the day or anything, but it is a little more significant this year. One year from now I will “retire.” I will still have to pay the bills, but my plan is to work at something other than an office job.

Once you’ve done one kind of job, it’s easiest to keep doing it. You have experience on your resume, so your employer is not taking a chance on whether you can learn it. I will have to push myself to Be, Do, and Have new things in my life and not just slip back into the easy and familiar. When I was in my 20’s . . . and 30’s, I kept thinking “I’ll figure it out eventually.” Now I realize I have to live the life I want now, not in ten years.

One thing I’ve wanted for decades is to be a published author. I’m publishing my first book this summer. The learning curve has been much steeper than I expected. Over the next two months, I have a tremendous amount to learn and do, all while finishing up a final edit. Oh, and then there’s the next novel that is nagging at me to write it! All of this has the potential to overwhelm me like a sudden wave pushing me underwater.

I’m going to get into the water and swim, while I’m learning to swim. Reading and talking about swimming got me to this point, and now I have to take it further.