Sam finally signed the release document.
And, he sent it to Ira’s assistant as requested. But he was too late. By the time Sam’s paperwork arrived, Ira was long gone for his trip, and my scripts were not on the top of his review pile. Or, in the middle of it, or even on the bottom. We’d missed our sneaky shot to perfectly place Hurricane Season in front of a true decision maker who had the power to do something huge.
We missed our chance by three hours.
Anyone who knows me well knows one of my mom’s best sayings is this: When you want something in the worst way, that’s usually how you get it.
That saying was dogging me like a bloodhound that day because all I wanted was for one thing to go my way, and I didn’t want Lou or Sam to be causing me to question myself about who I was, or what I wanted in my life anymore. But that wasn’t how things were playing out for me, and I truly felt like things were unfolding in the worst way because of how badly I had compromised myself along the way.
But Roy assured me that the paperwork delay wasn’t the end of the world. Ira was still going to read the scripts, and Lana’s support was enough to ensure Ira’s interest in the project was already established. Plus now I was formerly engaged with Ira’s agency — and that was a really big deal. But it would just take more time. Ira was going to be out of the country for at least a month, and his assistant told Roy she didn’t think he’d take on any more projects to review while he was on the road — even though she told Roy she’d try.
Sometimes, when I think about my life, I can’t help but make a “list of wonders.” What I mean is that I just wonder how things would’ve turned out if one single event had happened differently:
Would it have changed everything in my life if Sam had signed the release form in time?
Would Ira have optioned the pilot right away, and set an entire series of events in motion that would’ve fulfilled my every fantasy about my future?
The answer to this might surprise you.
But let’s not get ahead of things…
However, I can’t help but think about these same questions on a larger scale, too. I mean… How would my life have ended up if Lou and I had made one single decision differently on The Imposition Tour? Like… What if we zigged instead of zagged when we came to an unexpected twist in our circumstances? Or… What if we had stayed put, and just tried a little harder to make things work in Sarasota…or Miami…or Orange County? Would something have finally turned out for us that would’ve made our lives better? Or…maybe worse? (Which is always a possibility!)
But here are just a few of the “what ifs” that have kept me up at night:
What if Lou had chosen a different trust officer to keep watch over all of his money?
What if I had been brave enough to keep my career and book tour on track when we first found out we were broke?
What if Lou had never gotten those Low-T shots?
What if Lou opted for the original surgery in Minnesota?
What if I had chosen one of the reality TV writers Walt suggested to teach me how to write my series instead of Sam?
I seriously could go on and on with my list of wonders and what ifs. Pick an event from my past, and I can tell you what the choices were, and how we missed them, or how the choices we each made massively changed our lives.
Life clearly amounts to one long decision tree that presents you with big and small choices every day, and each of those choices gradually grows your present into your future. And even though I’m positive that every one of my biggest and most life-altering decisions was made with care and belief, you can never know how one thing will lead to the next. There are always forces at play that are beyond your control or understanding, and fighting against that fact in my head has only kept me stuck.
The biggest mercy I’ve been able to isolate when I reflect back on the whole of The Imposition Tour is this:
Sometimes, my devastating defeats and darkest moments were actually God protecting me, and saving me for something greater.
Sometimes, I can see how the missed chances have ended up saving me from myself, while sometimes, they have just given me one more go around to learn the same lessons better or differently than I could have the first time. But no matter how I look at it, I know God is brilliantly weaving a story in my life that I’m incapable of predicting from one page to the next.
The unshakeable part of my faith knows that God has never left my side, and He never will. When I stray too far off course with my own set of plans, He always calls me back to Him when things go pear-shaped, or when I end up in a ditch of disappointment. With lots of experience with this pattern now, I sense that it’s wiser to view the misses and the mistakes in my life as a blessing, versus a curse.
Armed with the power to forgive and learn from my mistakes, I believe I can brace myself for the next turn – even though I still don’t know the how, the what, the where, the when or the why of any part of my life. But what I do know is this:
