A year ago I was working for a company out of Florida. I had been with this company for almost eleven years. Twice I had done proposals for them to transfer me to two different states to do their research, and twice they transferred me. I thought everything was just as good as it could be. I worked hard, sometimes hours off the clock, but it was worth it. I was paid pretty decently, had my 401K building up, had terrific medical benefits. Vacation time was rolled up with personal days and sick days so we no longer had to give an excuse for taking a day off, or call in sick at the end of the year in order to get our sick days. And the amount of time you stacked up rolled over from year to year. You weren’t required to take any time unless you racked up 5 weeks and then you had to take two of your weeks. Then you started racking the time up again.

I was a trooper, even before I went on the road as an agent, I went further than expected, even when working in house. I gave the company 200% all the time. The last move I made was to Missouri to cover their court searches here. I moved from Ohio, just because I hated Cleveland so bad, and I needed to move away from my son and his family because they relied on me too much.

So when I moved to Missouri, I offered my stepfather to my step-father to move in, and I would take care of him. He was 73, had bi-polar disorder and had just had major heart surgery. I was able to schedule my work around his needs, and I was still giving the company 200%.

The last thing on my mind was a relationship, my husband had been gone for nine years, and I was just pretty sure I was to spend the rest of my life alone. I made friends with the neighbor upstairs, and last April we were married.I had just gotten approved for a loan to buy a house and was going to close on in in a few weeks. I thought I had the best life ever. A good job, lived in a nice, quiet rural own, was buying a house and fell in love.

I didn’t see it coming. Less than a week after we were married, I got a phone call informing me I had been laid off. It was like running into a brick wall. Getting laid off was not my fault, but I took it personally. I had never been fired or laid off from a job ever, and it was a blow to my ego and self esteem.

It wasn’t until after a few weeks, when I started to relax, that I realized all of these years I had literally been destroying myself, destroying my body and health. I had been running on pure adrenalin all those years. I didn’t sleep right, I didn’t eat right, I didn’t take care of myself because I was so involved in doing my work and taking care of everyone else.

Today, I am a freelance writer. I ran a muck on the Internet, trying all of these work from home opportunities, spent all kinds of money, and found nothing that pays except writing. This works so well, since there are times I need to spend away from home due to my husbands health. Now I can take my work with me wherever I go, I can pick my own hours, and write on subjects that I enjoy.

Sometimes life can throw you a curve ball that you don’t see coming. If you can step back and take a look at the other side of the mirror, you may just find out that the curve ball did you the biggest favor of your life. Don’t ever look at the glass as half empty, always look at it as half full. Always look on the other side of the mirror, and catch all the curve balls that you can.