It’s been a week since the royal wedding, even longer since I’ve written here and I thought it was time for an honest update.
The contract for my last job ended in October. That put my already strained finances under even greater pressure. Putting money towards donations or hours towards volunteering instead of earning money got more difficult. And if you have been unemployed for a long time you’ll be able to understand the amount of self-care is needed to just keep going. It’s been challenging.
It feels like it has pushed my dreams further away and nothing echoed that more than the royal wedding. I love weddings and have a secret addiction to watching cute proposal videos online. I just love LOVE and these two clearly love each other. I also respect HRH Prince Harry for all that he’s done with the Invictus Games and speaking about mental health through Head’s Together. So I got up semi-early (not in the middle of the night, thank you DVR) and made scones and sat down for all the pomp and circumstance. It was beautiful.
But as I watched Meghan and read the coverage the following days I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious. She had made from California to royalty. She had made it on her own, dealt with family issues, and fell in love in her thirties and all of a sudden it’s her full-time job to be a philanthropist. It’s her job to raise awareness for causes important to her. It’s her job to sit front row and cheer at the Invictus Games. It’s her job to give medals to charity runners at the London Marathon. My heart pangs for a job like that.
There are tradeoffs, she has to wear pantyhose now, no bright nail polish, no more shellfish, she had to shut down her blog, no more social media, lots of paparazzi, and she can’t volunteer quite the way I can, really getting in on the ground level. But the tradeoffs seem small for a dream job. All jobs have tradeoffs after all.
I’m careful to say envious, not jealous because I don’t want what she has, I want my own life and my own path. I know that if I keep working I can be a philanthropist too. I don’t have to be Melinda Gates or the Duchess of Sussex or Michelle Obama if I only turn the envy into inspiration.
And that’s how you get through the hard times, you take the setbacks and envy and sadness and you look for the inspiration. Then you look again. You keep finding the inspiration until you get somewhere. You never know when your life will suddenly be that fairy tale you’ve been working towards.
I can raise awareness for causes that are important to me. I can volunteer at the Invictus Games. I can receive a medal running for charity at the London Marathon. I don’t need a prince to become my own kind of American Princess.