What's Your Story?

I have been talking about "living in a story-telling consciousness" now for a few days, and it strikes me, I should share my story.
Do you ask yourself: Why Am I Here?
I seem to ask myself that a lot, and I come up with lots of different answers.
But here is where I am right now in that journey:
It's been a bit of a wild ride the last few years, and this is partially why I depend so much on my visual journal to make sense of it all.
The Reader's Digest version is this:
I started out in the professional world working as an architect, and had two babies while in Grad School, (which didn't seem to create a large favorable impression on my professors.) When the second baby was born, I gleefully started staying home with the kids and developed a series of part time, entrepreneurial-type businesses, teaching art, drawing house remodeling plans, running an arts council, doing and teaching graphic design . . . . (and had a third baby!)
My husband's career involved several cross country moves (Maryland to Indiana to New Jersey) and each time I would just start over again, building contacts and work connections.
I always had my studio and art work as an anchor to these projects, and of course, raising the three kids took lots of my time.
Then, two years ago, we found ourselves in a house mortgaged more than it was worth, so we spent lots of our savings to sell it and get out of that bad housing market.
and very soon after, my husband's very good job went away.
No job.
No house.
ouch.
So it was Go Time.
Time to really see if I trusted in the Universe and believed all that new agey crap I have been thinking I lived for the last 3 decades of my life - following my bliss, believing in the best outcome, trusting the Universe, and all that nice stuff.
and
YES
I am here to say it does work.
My two older kids are doing great on their own in New Jersey.
We got a house sit situation and live now in Denver, where we always wanted to be.
My youngest is starting at a wonderful high school school we couldn't have even imagined, it is so perfect for her.
I show work at a gallery, teach at an art center, and even have some shamanic counseling work coming in.
My husband is on the cusp of a phenomenal new job (you can cross your fingers for that one) and we are going to start considering where we will move, when this house sit ends this year.
In the midst of this, I used miles for free plane tickets to wander a bit in France and the UK, and ask myself lots of questions about what I believed, how far would I go to trust the Universe to take care of us, how much do I REALLY believe that all shall be well when we throw ourselves in the direction our souls long to go.
It hasn't been easy and there have been huge challenges - I have chronic illness and have had no health insurance for 18 months, we had to pack and move a household 3000 miles, and being in a new place is always exhausting and stressful.
I also am still not perfectly sure of my life's work, and hope it feels more clear within a year.
For now, it is this visual journaling work, making art, and shamanism.
The stress of money makes it hard to make these choices since very little income results, but I know I am taken care of, these last two years are evidence.
So that's my story.
I would love to hear yours!
I don't get lots of comments here, maybe because I have my blog set to have to approve them, but please know I would love to hear about your life and how your story is moving you toward fullness, wholeness, authenticity in your own path.
This one short life we have is not always safe or easy or tidy or even fun, but it sure is a wild ride if we trust and go for our own highest possibility - imagine it, do it, make a space and it will be filled with amazing miracles.
But you gotta make that space first.
Faith. . . . and trust.
It will happen for the best outcome, I know that so clearly now.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” --Joseph Campbell