I’m still recovering from work and family travel. Portland, Oregon, to Phoenix, Arizona, to Kitchener, Ontario Canada–all within two weeks.  I’m ready for normalcy, schedules and less airports and driving. In the middle of it all, on my way to Arizona, I wrote the blog post below. And, in the midst of traveling and working and research and new apartment hunting…didn’t get around until posting it today. Yes, so glad to be back on a normal schedule!

The Cost

It’s Friday. My phone alarm blares dubstep and I hop up in a trance.

I step into a pale yellow shift dress, chunky heels, and top it off with some jewelry for bling. I throw over my sleek, deep purple not quite spring, not quite winter coat. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, pulling my purple patterned rolling suitcase down the hallway, and smirk. I unintentionally matched my luggage.

After a whirlwind, information-packed, client-meeting business trip to Portland, Oregon early in the week, my brain was still mush. I shove my way-too-big-for-a-3-day-weekend suitcase into the back of my car and speed off to work.

Morning and afternoon pass and I check items off my to-do list. There’s still so much to learn. PR agency life is so new, and I continue to let it sink in, creating structure in my mind for a field in which I still definitely consider myself a novice.

I clink my Mac shut, and drive off two hours to the airport, where I catch my flight out to Phoenix to meet my parents and brother for a three-day Easter weekend. And here now I sit, on my fifth airplane of the week, working on bits and pieces of my final Master’s Degree research. I try to keep my eyes open as I shove communication audit data into Excel and try to quantify this qualitative mess.

I am very tired.

Sometimes I wonder what in the heck am I doing. Why am I running myself, pushing myself for crazy dreams that one day, one day all these efforts will pay off and be worth it.

I’m realizing now there’s a cost to success. There’s a cost for chasing your goals and dreams.

The cost is sacrificing the present moments. It’s creating a monotonous routine. It’s showing up and doing work, or making the work doable regardless of where you are. It’s not glamorous or fun or always relaxing, but great things don’t usually come easy. It’s these parts no one sees–but they always happen.

It’s not sporadic moments that create astonishing things. It’s not one moment of intense drive. It’s the repetitive, habitual, dull grind of work over time.

And in the end, it’s amazing.