That Excited/Scared Feeling

That glimmer up ahead? It's the light. The kind of light they all talk about. No, not the go-into-the-light-Carol-Anne creepy kind. The good kind. The kind that makes you think that maybe you ARE actually in a tunnel, albeit a long one, and it's not a cave after all. That kind of light. 

The kind that, even though it is just a glimmer, feels brighter and sweeter and warmer than you ever thought possible. 

The kind that appears after the storm of life-changing fears. And challenges. And monumental failures. And successes that still felt like failures. And learning things about yourself that you would have been perfectly content to never know. 
Some things that amazed you. And some that were so ugly they made you shudder. 

The kind that twinkles after dark, sleepless nights and anxiety ridden days. After knowing you cannot possibly get through another year of making dinner and mortgage payments out of nothing at all.

After you forever bid a heartbreaking farewell to the dream of one day being a stay-at-home part-time author/part-time Pilates instructor/cookie baking/immaculate-house-having wonder woman. And delve into the nightmare where the burden of supporting your children financially and helping them with homework and getting them where they need to go and still having the energy to be their mommy becomes just a little too onerous to carry. 

The kind of light that sparkles after you spent so much time second, third, and fifteenth-guessing yourself. And thinking maybe you should have just sucked it up and taken 18 credits this summer and graduated in August. Even while acknowledging that it probably would have {literally} killed you dead. And may not have even made a difference.

The kind that beams brilliantly when you land the perfect job. After a two and a half month long application process. Which gave you plenty of time to go from confidence to humility to certainty to self-doubt to worry to complacency a million times over. After two nerve-wracking interviews almost a month apart. {The second one, in front of a panel, being the one where you may or may not have compared yourself to the Karate Kid.}

That kind of light. 

Where your future, which is unquestionably still fuzzy, becomes just a little less blurry. A little more defined. 

And for a minute you get to take a deep breath. Knowing that while you're not quite sure working full-time in the summer while your children run lord-of-the-flies-style wild at home is going to be ideal...you at least know that you won't run out of milk, and toilet paper, and laundry detergent. 

Knowing that this job, teaching a student success course, will be challenging and different. But also awesome and rewarding. And that because of the things {both marvelous and unattractive} that you have learned about yourself in your life thus far, you know that you can pull it off. And maybe even be great.

Which leaves you feeling overwhelmed with gratitude and super enthusiastic and maybe a tiny bit anxious. 

Which was articulated brilliantly by Oscar Choi (played by the always fabulous Own Wilson) in the immortal film Armageddon:

  I got that "excited/scared" feeling. Like 98% excited, 2% scared.

 Or maybe it's more - It could be two - it could be 98% scared, 2% excited but that's what makes it so intense, it's so - confused. I can't really figure it out. 

I can't quite figure it out either. But whichever it is...3, 2, 1...liftoff.