Portrait of an Achiever & Who Do You Think You Are?

PORTRAIT OF AN ACHIEVER
Failed in Business – Bankruptcy, 1831
Defeated for Legislature, 1832
Sweetheart/Fiancée Dies, 1835
Nervous Breakdown, 1836
Defeated in Election, 1836
Defeated for U.S. Congress, 1843
Defeated again for U.S. Congress 1846
Defeated once again for U.S. Congress, 1848
Defeated for U.S. Senate, 1855
Defeated for U.S Vice President, 1856
Defeated again for U.S. Senate, 1858

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Elected President of the U.S.A., 1860

“You can not fail…unless you quit!”
-Abraham Lincoln

Ah, you gotta love em. Those lovelies who, for lack of better things to do, make their little path throughout this earth by trying to crap on other people’s ideas and excitement.

If it were not for the pecimests, Eeyore would not exist.

Last week I had a comment on one of my blog entries: ‘One thousand per week by December’

I’m glad I moderate my blog comments because I deleted it. But I kind of ’sat on it’ in my mind for the last few days and I suppose I’ve been stewing on it a tad. The jist of the comment basically said, “You are going to do what? What gives you the right? You haven’t even got your feet wet. You need at least a year behind you before you even consider running your own brokering business. You don’t have enough experience. You expect others to work for you? HAH!”

Well, I’ve stewed and stewed, and now that my stew is just right, I’m going to tell you dear lady, exactly who I think I am:

I am Robin Marie Hale, a wife and mother of four who lives in a beautiful two story cape cod home located in Southwest, Florida. But I wasn’t always married, and I didn’t always live here.

Just four years ago I lived in a dirty little apartment across the street from the mall. Let’s just say it wasn’t the elite part of town. It was a two bedroom, but I had three children. We made a bedroom for my son in the dining room. Who says rooms have to be what they were designed for. All of our furniture was stuff that other people had put at the end of their driveway because it wasn’t good enough for them anymore…It was good enough for us. I remember how happy I was the day that the maintenance man “Heimey” knocked on my apartment door, smelling of alcohol. He came to tell me that someone had just thrown out an entertainment center that was really nice. He helped my son carry it up to our living room. We dusted it and proudly put our little television on it. We could get in exactly two channels. We had no idea what was on the cable stations. We had never been able to pay for cable. I remember thinking how good God was. He had that special knack of making sure that I found out about the nice trash that people threw away before the garbage man got to it. My son still has that entertainment center in his bedroom. He is 17 now. I offered to buy him a brand new bedroom set, but he declined. ‘It wouldn’t mean anything to me.” was his reasoning.

Before that apartment, when my kids were toddlers, we lived in a trailer that had holes in the floor. We could actually see the ground. I kept a dresser over the part that had the biggest hole so animals wouldn’t come in. We didn’t stay there too long though; their dad was so addicted to crack that we didn’t have any belongings or money, so we had to move.

Years before that (before my kids were born) I lived in a nice house in an elite suburb of Detroit. Our family was very wealthy and I should have felt lucky to live there, but I couldn’t wait until I turned 18, so I could leave. My grandfather had molested me so many times when I was a toddler that I was strangely scarred and eventually had to go through alot of therapy with counselors and at my church.

Somewhere in between all of those weird times I had several bouts with alcoholism. But thank God I was sober and a wonderful mommy as soon as my children came along. They were my saviors. And then I found God, and He pretty much fixed the rest of me up. Oh I’m still pretty strange, and have several vices. But Abraham Lincoln said, “It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” So I’ve got Abe on my side.

Well, that’s just the bad part of my story. All throughout my life I’ve read books. I’ve always loved words. They were my greatest escape. A good book could take me places that a bottle of alcohol couldn’t even begin to. After reading I learned to write. I wrote every day, anything. My third grade teacher and my college professor both told me that I had the gift of writing. ‘I had the gift.’ That was a blow to my lack of self esteem and my anxiety warped emotions. ‘I had the gift.’

I wrote a few children’s articles at first and then by the time I started writing for television I couldn’t be stopped. I was free! Free from the glaring looks and hurtful words of my mother who only told me what a failure I would be. Free from everyone’s opinions and judgments.

That was a rampage….A little scurry through days and moments and slices of my past. I said all that to say this, dear lady. Who do I think I am? I am Robin Marie Hale. I’ve been through hell and back, but I’m still here. I’m an overcomer, a success story, a portrait of an achiever. And if I want to start a business today, then it shall be done…today. My success doesn’t answer to your opinions of how I should go about things. I feel sorry for you, for you are stuck in the drudgery of the every day simpleton. It is not enough for you to hold yourself back; you would wish to hold the masses back as well.

A word of wisdom to my simpleton friend: I, Robin Hale would much rather try and fail, than fail to try.

There is no shame in failure. The shame should be in the strange contentment that comes over those who simply exist in this life. They exist without the tiniest thought of breaking out of their self-constructed barriers. And so it is when they are so bogged down with the heaviness of their own sorry disposition, that they shall never feel what it is like to really fly. And you know what? The wind on your face way up there is very, very refreshing.

~ by robinana on 13 November, 2008.