Ever lose it all?

Ever find yourself kissing what feels like a winning lottery ticket in your life only to watch it fumble out of your hands?

Ever got that thing you wanted so badly? Worked so hard for? That jumbo job promotion….that acceptance letter to your dream school…that raise at your full-time job……met that person you thought was the person you’d spend forever with….

Only to watch it slip away?

Only to get fired, laid-off, pushed out? Only to find out that person wasn’t who you thought they were?

Ever lost what feels like a winning lottery ticket? Ever feel like you’ve lost it all?

I think about this as I bend over in pain. I hit the one mile mark and I pulled over to stand on the sidewalk.

This time last year, I was running 10 miles. I was on track to run my first half marathon. I had gone from not being able to run more than 1 mile to running 10 and feeling like the hero of my own life.

Ever lost it all and made the decision to start over again? To try again? To button yourself up and stand up tall and go back to the beginning?

There I was, trying again, stretching out an injured knee that made my running adventure end last year. I keep attempting to start the adventure again, a whole lot slower, with a whole lot more pain.

I thought about all the times in my life I went from dancing on stage during a highlight moment of my life  – only to be locked out of my own party just a few days later.

A year after getting a major book deal with a well-known publisher, I couldn’t even get a meeting with any of them. My third book was rejected by over a dozen of them, including three publishers that had a bidding war over the second book.

I once found out that a person I loved dearly wasn’t who I thought they were after knowing them for a very long time. SO much of who I thought they were turned out to be one giant washcloth of a lie.

Years ago, right after getting a giant raise at a company I worked for, I found myself sitting in a conference room with my boss as he delivered the news that I was getting laid-off. The raise didn’t even kick in by the time I was getting kicked out of the front door.

Losing it all is different from rejection.

Rejection is when you try and you just don’t get that thing.

Loss is  when you had it! YOU FREAKING HAD IT! And now it’s gone.

I quit stretching out my injured knee and I make a new goal for myself to get to the other end of the sidewalk before calling it quits for the day.

That’s some advanced human stuff, I thought to myself as I’m huffing and puffing down crackled pavement…to lose that lottery ticket in your life and start again from scratch.

To try again…

To try one more time..

To apply again, love again, ask again…

To swallow your ego and be willing to wake up in  the morning and start back where you started many years ago…

We’re all chasing after some kind of lottery ticket…

Love it dearly, when it’s in your hands, and find the courage to chase it again, if you still want it, once it slips away.