when you're having a moment.

where my heart resides-7

Like most twenty-something writers in the year 2014, it has been a longtime secret dream of mine to be published on the Huffington Post. Yesterday, that dream came true. I was officially granted access to the HuffPo circle of trust, and can now publish there anytime I want to. A whole new audience, a whole new opportunity, a whole new platform. I have my own author page and everything.

My post was published in the afternoon, right in the middle of naptime. Naturally, I celebrated in complete silence on the couch, in my sweatpants, eating vanilla ice cream straight out of the carton like the glamorous writer that I am.

It was awesome. 

And as the texts and e-mails and messages poured in from friends and family, I had A Moment. A moment of gut-wrenching, heart-bursting gratitude. A moment of letting every insecurity I have ever felt about myself, my writing, this blog, that blog, my life calling, whatever....float up into the sky like a hot air balloon. I just let it go. I sat on my couch scraping the bottom of the ice cream carton with a cold spoon and mentally thanked God for giving me the words to write. I thanked this country for the freedom of speech. I thanked that girl who told me she read my post out loud at a baby shower and made all the moms cry. I thanked every person who shared that post on Facebook.

And today, I want to thank you. Whether you've been reading this blog for five years or five days or five minutes, you have contributed to this tiny moment of success and for that, I am ever thankful. Thank you for reading, for showing up, for making me feel safe while I pour my heart out on the Internet. As cheesy as it sounds, I couldn't do it without you.

Cheers to chasing dreams, working hard, and above all else: thanking God who made it so.