Sometimes changes comes imperceptibly and other times it’s like someone is standing at your door ringing the doorbell, waiting for you to answer. The ground beneath your feet has moved, almost while you slept. How do I know this to be true?

Years ago, when I had two toddlers running around the house, crippling back pain, and a fuse that had long since burned to nothing with a diagnosis of bipolar depression, I used to freak right out at the first sign of mess.

It was something I couldn’t cope with. And when it did arrive, I would scream, yell, have a tantrum and wish it away most notably by making my kids feel bad about accidents. Things they had no control over. I couldn’t see this then, but I see it now.

Many years have passed and change has come. This morning I woke up to blood splattered all over my bathroom floor, thanks to my daughter’s nose bleeds in the night. I wondered if something had happened I had forgotten and then sleepily, I went to get a cloth, filled the sink with hot, soapy water and on my hands and knees began to scrub it clean.

Within minutes, my son, accidently tipped over a full box of Cheerios and 1/2 the box went all over the floor. I grabbed the brush and dustpan and told him to be careful next time. In minutes I had it all cleaned up and got dressed to drive them to school.

After arriving home, the gutters overflowed with torrential rain, and I got the ladder, climbed it and steadied myself as I cleared the gutters of pine needles, leaves and debris and got soaked in the process. It was actually kind of fun to let the waters flow free. I felt like a duck in a very small pond watching the water rush toward the gutter that fills our cistern and gives us the water for our house.

And it’s only now, as I stare at my newest book that I just got onto my ereader today, that I think that I have indeed changed, so much that I barely recognize myself. I am older, yes, wiser, I hope so, and somehow, day by day I am getting it done.

Never have I felt more like I am on the path I am meant to be on, but the lessons are changing. I have changed. And so with the ringing of the doorbell, a note is handed to me, that says, “you’re on your way. train is leaving in 10. be on it.”

Physically, I’m not going anywhere right now. But emotionally, and psychologically I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for 20 years. Since my diagnosis in 1997 with bipolar disorder that left me broken, empty, scared and very lonely. I knew then that writing was the only way I was going to endure life with this illness. It would give my life purpose, my days meaning and my heart something to hope for.

So how do I feel?  Lucky. That’s it. Very lucky to have written and published this book and so very excited to share it with the world. Hold on tight because the train is leaving and these kids are going on an incredible adventure to Petra, Jordan. Wonder of all wonders. Have you got your ticket?