I might have made it....

To Being Fifty. Just a few more days away. Never thought I'd make it.
I took the hard road for a long time. So many things I could tell you about, but sufice it to say that I made many wrong choices until I was about 35..... thought the behaviors would have killed me long before now... best part about actually making it this far on my path is being able to do what is my passion for the very first time in my life. I've dabbled in food for the last ten years or so, but never in a big restaurant environment. I'm now the Pastry Chef and Chief Cook in a good place, with a fabulous mentor that is turning into a friend.

It feels rather strange to be here, now, instead of having found a way to this pursuit of my passion at an earlier age. All things in the right time I guess. Julia Child, who I started watching as a child, didn't start living her passion until she was forty-something. Guess I'm still forty-something, at least for a few more days. I don't mind following in her foot steps one bit. She was a jazzy lady.

When you get to get up tired from the long day that came before and are jazzed to get to work because there are strawberries to be coated in chocolate and nuts, tiny key lime tarts to create, and what has become my signature potato salad... life is good. Even if I am exhausted, and a bit under the weather. Life is good.

I feel very lucky to have experienced so much in life. I am grateful to the ancestors and the Spirits for getting me this far. I am actually, nearly, at a loss for words.... Overwhelmed by the feeling of having overcome said early obstacles and boulders and things that blocked my path for all those years.
Joined the Army at eighteen. It was fun. 29 different countries in four years. But it was not my passion.
Went to college to find my passion, and found my inner scribe. But, never liked the hours when I was a journalist. Writing for newspapers is too factual for me. Who, what, when, where, and why were too constraining. Although I did like covering the Kansas City Chiefs for a couple of years. But it was not my passion.
I took an artistic bent and designed advertising and all that jazz for awhile. Also fun, but always what someone else wanted. It was not my passion.
Food has always been a passion for me and I am finally where I want to be..... well nearly.

Now I thinking that when I am sixty I will buy that place on the coast of somewhere and open that bistro and boarding house I've been dreaming and talking about since I was much younger. If I've made it this far, there must be a long way to go.