In fact, the birthday wasn’t much different from every other day this year. I had promised myself to take the day off, but it just wasn’t very convenient to do so.

So I walked the kid to school, and worked on website issues with my tech team, and dealt with a few “fires” that had to be put out.

It was pretty much an uneventful birthday.

At first, this did not set well with me. See, I’m an action taker – a DO-er – and sitting around NOT doing what I wanted to do kind of pissed me off.

Add to that the fact that my husband didn’t even have a birthday card for me that morning (he came home with one, though), and the day was NOT going to my liking.

I’m kind of crabby right now about my husband’s new work schedule. Last year, his schedule allowed him to pick our youngest son up from school each afternoon, giving me an opportunity to finish up my work before they got home, have dinner ready, and spend the evening doing at least one family-oriented activity together.

But now, I’m doing the dropping off and the picking up. At first, I thought I’d be okay with that (God knows I could use the exercise!), but yesterday was my birthday, and I was feeling a bit crabby about it, to be frank. In between, I’d squeeze in some “me” time by hanging out on social media and checking my email (yep, that’s what I do for fun. I’m strange. I know).

Well, my inbox (which hasn’t had fewer than 500 unread messages in years) had no less than three emails from coaching clients indicating a problem with the website.

Joy.

Now, I could have easily ignored these emails – I had told them I was taking the day off, after all. But that’s not how I roll.

You can scold me later. Right now I have a story to finish.

So I put the word out to my tech people to see what the dealio was. And then I started kicking myself for reading emails on my “day off”.

See? I told you to scold me later!

Anywho, the rest of the afternoon went by uneventfully, as I tried to step away from the computer and “enjoy” myself.

But I couldn’t. I was hurting too much.

I didn’t realize it until today, but that’s why I was glued to my computer.

See, pulling myself away from my electronics would have forced me to feel the uncomfortableness and isolation I was experiencing. It would have allowed the resentment, pain and tears to rise to the surface, and then I would have started bitching and moaning about how it was my birthday, and my husband didn’t even get me a card and all that crap.

Yeah. That.

And quite frankly, because it was my birthday, I didn’t WANT to feel that way. So I stuck my nose in my laptop until it was time to walk to the school and pick up the kid. We walked home. I read him a story, and I let him watch Netflix while I went back to trying to troubleshoot the website issue.

And then my husband walked in with a grocery bag. He was late coming home because he was at the store, picking up my birthday card among other things, and had forgotten that I wanted to go visit my friend Rhonda’s shop that evening. Actually, I have to take some ownership for that, because I didn’t put it on the calendar on the fridge. Mostly because I had been talking about it all freaking week.

So when he got home, I went by myself.

Apparently the City of Flint did not get the memo about it being my birthday, because there wasn’t a single place to park on the whole block. So I drove around and parked a block up.

I walked into the shop – bustling with activity, as I was there for a special event. A spirited gathering of spiritual seekers, this group was quite a cross-section of the community: young, old, black, white, wealthy, poor. It was a delicious mingling of kindred spirits.

THIS was how I wanted my birthday to be.

I’m reminded of the passage in the bible about the wedding, where “good people” were invited, but didn’t come, and how the king was so enraged, he decided to invite “just anyone” off the street who could get there to attend.

Not that I’m a king or anything of the sort.

But here, in a room of mostly strangers, they sang to me. And I cried, which is sappy, but hey, I’m cute like that.

It was sad and wonderful all at the same time.

It reinforced for me the need to create what I want myself instead of waiting for someone else to bestow it on my behalf. It highlighted how I’ve been using my computer to self-medicate and distract myself from really feeling what I’m experiencing.

It clarified so many things for me. My birthdays tend to do that.

So I’ve got some work to do. And the good news is that I’m not doing alone. I’ve been blessed with pretty cool friends – and apparently some pretty cool strangers – to help me on the journey. And you’ll be along for that ride too, if you’re here with me.

So what’s all this babble got to do with you? Well, think about this: where are you distracting yourself from really living your life?

Why?

What are you going to do about it?

Judi started recounting a memory about a need to have time to explore, and figure stuff out before you could take a next step.

And in my brain, the image of a skydiver, timing the opening of his chute, came vividly into view.

See, a jumper can’t pull the rip cord as soon as his feet are clear of the plane.

There has to be some amount of freefall  - away from the plane, out into the open.  In one respect, freefall is actually a safety mechanism to make sure the jumper is clear of the plane.

Then, when the cord is pulled and the chute begins to open, the jumper is actually lifted up a bit, as the air fills the chute and slows the descent of the jumper.

Pull the cord too soon, and you could get sucked back into the plane’s engines (youch).

Pull the cord too late, and you end up splatted on the ground (double youch!)

Some jumpers count the seconds until the pull. Others enjoy the view on the way down. They explore the feeling of freefall and look around to see what’s on the horizon, etc.

This brought me back to Judi’s comment about needing time to explore.

Essentially, there are times in our journey, when we need to give ourselves permission to explore, to play the field, to experiment and figure stuff out. To try on new hats, and see which ones we like. We need an opportunity to journey our path of trials and see what awaits us.

I remember the scene in “The Princess Bride” when Westley is recounting how he inherited the “Dread Pirate Roberts” title. He shares with Princess Buttercup how he spent 5 years learning “fencing, fighting – anything anyone would teach him” and ultimately assumed the pirate role when his predecessor retired.

While I don’t think I need 5 years, nor do I want to become the Dread Pirate Roberts per se, it is time to assume my new role.

The Renaissance Mom is an important chapter in my journey. It’s my sandbox, my testing ground. It’s the place where I’ve given myself permission to explore, recreate, mold, scratch out and start over. It’s been a sounding board and a haven for the brain bombs that have kept me up and thinking.

There’s a point on every hero’s journey after they cross a threshold that the path of trials starts to come to an end. They’ve figured out how to defeat the giant, and the hero actually starts living the life of a hero. There’s a freedom and even a bit of ease about life again on the other side of the trials.

You need time to ramble and explore, to get bloodied up on the path of trials and test your mettle, if you will. That’s when you find out if you really do have what it takes to be a hero.

The Renaissance Mom has been my outpost, my “three broomsticks”, my refuge between trials, where I could document this journey and hopefully help others along the way.

And now, it’s time for my next Renaissance.

When I created The Renaissance Mom, I didn’t know for sure how it would turn out. I knew I wanted to help entrepreneurs, and I’ve spent the last year working through what that looks like and how the next evolution will manifest itself in the world.

That day is finally here.

No longer will you see me blogging here. The site will remain up through the end of the year, most likely, but no new posts are being planned. Eventually, even the 30 days to Renaissance will fade away.

Instead, I invite you to join me on the next phase of my adventure: Business Action Hero is obviously not a title that will resonate with everyone, but it’s an incredibly accurate representation of where I’m headed next. Having taking the last year to work on my own renaissance, I know it requires action, faith and a bit of heroism to be a business owner. Business Action Hero is my next evolution, and I’ll be there to help other entrepreneurs to become the hero of their own business, and navigate their own journey.

Until we meet again on the journey…

I’m in the throes of the Small Biz Super Summit, along with a new client project, and preparing for the launch of a new division of my business.

And I get an email from a client, angry with me for “violating her privacy”.

The claim was unfounded, and after resolving the misunderstanding, I finally decided to let her go.

Yes, I fired my client.

You are FIRED!

See, there comes a time in your business life where enduring the stress and strain of some clients isn’t worth ANY sum of money. Some of you have heard me say this before, but I wanted to let you know that I still face this issue from time to time – despite my well-crafted Perfect-Fit Customer Profiles.

Not only did this client email me with false accusations, she also launched into a tirade in a group forum of her company, where other people could hear her rant (and later report back to me), but I could not offer the slightest commentary on the situation.

Instead of coming directly to the source of the issue (presumably me), she chose to make a spectacle of herself in front of other potential clients.

Let’s be clear: I have a loyalty to my clients. I also have a loyalty to my family. If you try to prevent me from earning a living to feed my family, my loyalty dries up like so much old paint.

There are a number of lessons from this event, which I’ll save for another post. But then, I had to fire a colleague.

At one time, this person and I traveled in relatively similar circles. I shared my book with her, and invited her into my community to share her wisdom. Over time, our paths diverged in the wilderness, but I still kept some contact with her and thought of her as a colleague I would refer business to.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

She “wrote” a post on her blog, and tweeted out the link. Because the title was a direct quote of something I say ALL the time, I thought it was worth checking out, and possibly sharing with my own audience.  It was a great post. She had pulled much of the content straight out of my book – with a few additions (presumably of her own) to make it her own.

I was shocked. Firstly because I knew this thief. Secondly, because I really didn’t think that much of myself that someone would want to steal my stuff (that’s another post all unto itself).

There are stories like this all over the place. The first one that comes to mind is Jeff Slutsky’s story about Office Depot using his “six dollar haircut” story in an ad that ran last year. Slutsky, however, had a happier ending than I believe I will.

Not only did this “colleague” plagiarize my work, but when I commented on her blog with a “great post” kind of remark, it was deleted.

So not only did she steal my stuff, she KNEW she was stealing it and, frankly, didn’t seem to care.

At first, I tried to relax and ignore it. But this nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. Especially since this same person had publicly remarked at an earlier point in our business lives that she felt that at some point everything she ever learned became “hers” to teach as her own.

I consulted my amazingly grounded and insightful coach, @SarahRobinson, who indicated that while she was not surprised at the person in question, that it was mostly sapping my energy in a way that wouldn’t give me resolution.

So I fired my “colleague”. Putting more distance between us, and spending as little energy as possible on the situation.

Tip: Nobody “just knows” everything. We all learn from someone. Give credit where credit is due, folks.

Thinking I was finished with all the firing for a single week, I then had to fire a friend.

This person was fairly close to me, and sadly, known to be a bit out of control emotionally. Their behavior could get pretty outrageous at times, and if alcohol was involved, well, let’s just say only the sober people in the room would remember what happened.

This person is an incredibly smart, insightful, enjoyable person, with an enormous heart and fiercely loyal – until their emotional issues rear their ugly head(s). It gets so bad that they start to believe their own lies as truths. It’s been going on for years – longer than I’ve even known them.

Well, the lies finally caught up this week. And I couldn’t be there to help fix the problem. The problem was really beyond fixing. All enabling had to stop, and the truth had to be revealed.

I had entrusted this friend with a special task, and that task remains undone. The good news is that I wasn’t counting on them to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place. The bad news is that I wasn’t counting on this friend to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place.

So when word got around that they were playing around doing other things instead of focusing on the task they committed to, I fired the friend.

Well, a temporary lay-off, anyway.

We can be as well-meaning as we want to be, but when you make a commitment, in my mind, you stick to it. Come Hell or high water.

And lest you see this as an incredibly downer post, I want to assure you that I firmly believe that God is nudging me to create space to accommodate newer, better, more constructive relationships in my life and work.

I can already see it happening. With the awesome help of my coach (did you see her Relationships project?), and the internal journey I’m travelling, there are new friends on the horizon, new clients on the books, and better colleagues to forge ahead with (ending a sentence with a preposition, ACK!).

Bring. It. On.