Hard times make us or break us.  While I believe I have seen more than my fair share of struggle and hard times. I know there is always  going to be someone with a sadder story, a darker past – someone who has lost more suffered more.  Someone whose life and karma have never been fair to.  I also know my hard is a first world hard and largely of my own design. How do we deal when the world is stacked against us.  How do we cope when everything seems to want to see us fail, to break our spirit? 

I seem to be a lightning rod for sad stories and a safe port in a storm for many.  If you have fallen on hard times – ask anyone who knows me – they will give you my number and I will do what I can.  Over the years it has cost me dearly – emotionally, financially  I have even lost friendships and reputation to people who frankly wound up not being worth the effort.  However, I believe if I don’t try,  if the world turns its back on potential, who knows what we have lost.  Sometimes, at least for me,  it  just took the right person at the right time to offer me the slimmest of threads of hope.  With that; just that tiny light I could muster the courage to carry on.  

In my darkest times I promise myself that if I can just get through the next minute, then 5, then 15, then 30 and so on; then I would be okay.  Sometimes the dark lasts a day, sometimes a week, often months and once nearly a decade. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I kept promising myself hope was just around the next corner.  

During my decade of struggle I had to push hard to make things happen.  The economy was in the toilet, jobs were few and far between, at most I seemed to manage contract work and campaign work.  I loved the work however, being a woman of child bearing years finding steady employment was a slog.  For the first 4 years they would ask at interviews if I had children.  About year 5 PC (politically correct) came into play – Sheila Copps passed a bill extending maternity leave and people were not able to ask about your children or desire to have them.  At this point women between 20 and 40 were  merely viewed with suspicion. Every part of me was scrutinised, I forgot to take off a necklace that had indeed been an invasion gift, I referred to my unborn children as aliens – as I felt a bit like John Hurt in the movie.  The interviewer told me my necklace was beautiful and asked if it had been a gift.  Of course still having “baby brain” and being a very proud first time mom I said yes and explained why I got it.  Needless to say the job went to a less qualified man about my age.

Times have changed – and things have gotten better but between postpartum, a terminally angry and entitled partner who measured everything in dollars and cents and being sidelined for propagating the race; I feel fortunate to have survived. 

It was not all darkness, like I said there was always that one person who at the right time would offer me that thread of hope.  When my partner got left holding the bag for two big contracts that were unpaid, and a bill at a supplier store was charged in his name; It was a professor who admired me that offered my financial assistance.  A stranger in a dog park, who offered to train my husband in a different line of work and sell him the company. A friend who would show up everyday and make me walk, myself, my child and my dog. A group of teenage girls who I had read to everyday for the previous 6 years who organised a child care schedule so at least once a week I could sleep as long as I needed to without having to get up with a crying child.   

A former boss who always managed to call when I was about to be crushed by an unforgiving system and would open the doors to let me plead my case and usually win.  

Eventually tides began to turn, however there were many hard lessons to learn.  Like no matter how brilliant I am. I am not a great employee in a big system.  I worked as a political organiser from the time I was 15 years old – that is a whole other story.  With my politics and where I live that often meant you got a big title, but no minions.  Until I had children I was a sought after organiser and right up to and including 9/11 I was working.  However that campaign made me realise my days as an organiser were done.  The candidate, the  tactics crossed into territory and were so ultra conservative I could not believe I was there, certainly my personal politics did not condon the messaging.  I had become a political slut. 

Thus began some of my darkest times.  That is when you realise that while History and Russian literature are fascinating and make you a delight at a cocktail party, partisan political experience, while good for the soul, is not really good on the resume.  There were entire years where I had to force myself to put out one resume a week. I could not handle the rejection of putting out more.  It truly was a struggle and often soul crushing.  My mental health was circling the drain.  I lost my belief in myself, I lost hope that I would ever find my path. I dreamed of a big life and instead all I could see was drudgery and being a little and meaningless cog in a big wheel.

It was in all that darkness that I finally accepted that perhaps I would never be Secretary General of the UN, or negotiate peace in the Middle East.  While working in rural communities at an environmental conference I met a man whose entire 40 year career had been simply to negotiate water rights on the Nile river.  Each and every time he had gotten all the agreements signed, a war, a coup or the formation of an entirely new country would nullify everything and he would have to start over.  I talked to him about how frustrating it must be never to achieve even a single step forward in your career.  His response was that he may never be able to win the race but he has created the path.   The next person will find the road a little easier and perhaps they will find the solution simply because he made the maps.

It was then I realised that demanding and expecting that I deserved the brass ring and all the gold and glory that come with it was perhaps not what I was destined for.  I may never be the trailblazer that is recorded in the annals of history or the first woman to… But maybe just maybe I could clear the path for that woman, or my son’s.  Perhaps I can whisper in her ear – “Just keep going Dear I believe in you.”  It is not always conquering Everest that makes you admired and appreciated – it is more often being the person who said to Sir Edmond Hillary – why of course you can climb Everest. I know you can do it, don’t be discouraged you have what it takes.

Hope, and success don’t always come with  a marching band leading a ticker tape parade in your honour. Hope and accomplishment are not always the throne or your name in the record books.  Accomplishment can be simply being the person who believes in the person who will stumble upon the big prize.  Not necessarily because they are looking but because you believed.

Once I let go of the hubris and accepted my greatest accomplishment might be giving my two sons the courage to pursue their passions and embrace themselves. Everything began to change.  Everything that I had been chasing- suddenly started chasing me.