I went backwards in life with my money making. Now that I’m in my 30’s, I live very much hand-to-mouth, relying on the man in my life for much financial support. This was not so in my 20’s, when I was making a steady paycheck and spending whatever I wanted on almost anything I wanted (within reason, of course). I don’t buy for myself now – nothing really. Once every few months I get a mani/pedi with my sister for $20 and eat pasta that night because I feel guilty that I spent that money on myself.

It’s weird – but I don’t worry so much about money. In a phone conversation with my mother, she was telling me she gets nervous since she doesn’t have a job. The savings account is dwindling down and she’s frightened. I’m different. Sometimes I have a breakdown when I check my bank account – but mostly I try not to look at the numbers [READ: zeroes]. I just have faith.

I don’t believe in God, per se, but I do believe in the greater power in life. I believe in the circle and that life will provide when it needs to. Any one day is a day that can change our lives – in that, I have faith. Every day I check my email and my mail and think something will come that will change my life. An offer, an opportunity, a check?!

Yesterday I caught the end of the movie, Cast Away on a snow day afternoon. Tom Hanks’ character, in his penultimate monologue in the movie, tells a friend how he almost gave up hope, but that the next morning the tide brought in a broken port-a-potty that he later used to make a boat and get off the island. “You never know what the tide will bring in,” he says. (Amen, I thought.)

There have been challenging times in my life – and certainly times when money has been tough, but it has seemed to me that whenever the numbers have shown themselves to be so low, whenever I have felt financially hopeless, life has intervened with help.

Recently a job opportunity presented itself to me – back to the corporate world – and I was once again taunted with a regular paycheck. It felt like a familiar crossroads. Should I jump at the opportunity to ease my daily financial hardship or do I continue to struggle monetarily, but persist in making my dreams come true? Do I throw away 13 years of corporate experience in hopes of striking it “not broke” on a virtually unlaunched, self-fulfilling writing career?

I’m a grown up with adult responsibilities and two kiddos who call me mom. My dream is to write stories, take photos and travel the world. My boyfriend is my partner, my daughter’s amazing daddy, my biggest cheerleader and my bestest friend – and he is in my inspiration daily – for creating the life I want to live. He has faith – not only in life – and love – but also in ME. He believes that I can do it.

When I joke about whether I was destined for greatness, he answers affirmatively – and seriously. “Of course you are.” (No wonder my parents like him.)

As for today, I hope and I dream. Some days I truly believe that it will happen. I live everyday regretting nothing and sucking every ounce of deliciousness out of it because these days will not last for long. Life is all about transition; its only constant is change.

Every few months I have a day when I wake up and I declare, “I will sell this house today” a la Annette Bening’s character in American Beauty. I always sell it when I declare it. I guess the day is soon approaching when “I will sell this house today” will become I will sell this story, I will sell this book. Because isn’t the famous saying, “If I write it, they will read it?”