The Prize is in the Process

A year ago, I started to feel complacent.

More so than loneliness, more so than frustration and even more than confusion, feeling stagnant was a more complicated and infuriating feeling than anything else. If I’m not moving, than I’m not growing, if I’m not growing and experiencing new things and learning, than why was I paying such a premium to live here?

No one moves to New York to stay still and to remain silent. They move – or at the very least, I moved – to be challenged. I didn’t want – or expect – the city to take it easy on me. I wanted the hardships and the pains.

Without them, how could I ever enjoy my success when I made it?

Those thoughts are the very ones that plagued me last year. Nothing was exactly wrong, of course. I was gainfully employed by a reputable, well-known company. I had a roof over my head and more than enough to save for future roofs. I wasn’t lacking love – other than romantic – and even though my father’s health wasn’t exactly great, it was stable and more importantly, officially cancer-free.

But I wasn’t happy – not with anything and especially not with myself. I wanted more and I craved change. But day after day, and month after month, the little routine that I built for my little life chugged along, status quo and … boring as hell.

And then on January 1, 2014, per the instructions of my star-gazing, astrologically-gifted mother, I wrote down all of the things I wanted.

Per her recommendations, I got very specific: the title I wanted, the type of work environment I hoped for, the salary I dreamed of having. I wrote down the qualities I desired in a man: a kind, giving heart, a hard-working spirit, a family man with character and charm, and a person who kept me on my toes everywhere – in conversation, in adventures, in the bedroom. I scribbled about the apartment I often imagined in my head, many floors up or an old walk-up, laundry in the building and a dishwasher, a studio for one or the luxury of affording a decent two bedroom for two. The ability to walk to work every day, instead of fighting commuters on the train. I even wrote about my friends and family, their health and their happiness, and I vowed to become a better daughter and a better confidant, a gentler puppy mom, and a believer in the good, instead of a dweller of the bad.

It was quite the long list, but it was meant to really shake up things this year.

And ya know what? It worked.

Since March 1- I ran the New York City Half-Marathon, I was accepted into the NYC Marathon in November, I put in my notice at iVillage, traveled to Europe for 10 days with my brave mom and started a new exciting job at AMC Networks. And while the verdict is still out on the next Mr. that will feature these pages, I don’t quite mind the wait. Instead, dating feels just a little easier than it has for a very long time.

But that’s how it goes, doesn’t it?

When everything feels stale and you find yourself just holding out for the next big thing, it feels like your state of stationary will be endless. When you’re in the hard part of the process – with the tears and the angry writing and the fears and the motionlessness – you can’t see the other end.

You can’t see what a difference a year makes.

And you can’t begin to realize how important that process was to get you to where you’re going. How strong it made you, and how secure. How much you learned at one job – thanks to some very wonderful mentors – that fully prepared you for that promotion and raise you wanted. How your dad’s deteriorating health made you see the vulnerability of your parents for the first time, giving them mortality and bringing you all closer. How friends that held you accountable for your moods and your language turned you into a more generous, more understanding woman who thinks before she speaks (and types). How being single and enduring countless terrible dates, makes you so grateful for one that goes well, regardless if there is a second or a third or more. How through it all, you somehow kept your state of grace and somehow, your heart not only remained open and hopeful, but it grew even bigger than before.

Though I’m relishing a newfound confidence and all of the many changes that I’ve been blessed to find – and create! – I’ve learned an important lesson in the waiting period: The prize isn’t found here when things are easier and the sweetness of summer is within sight.

Instead, the prize is in the patience in the process it took to get here. The prize is what that process, what those trials, what those lessons, what those very long, stale days, made me into.

The prize is in me – and in knowing that no matter what comes and doesn’t, what remains the same and what changes, what happens and what is going to happen – I know I can not only get through it…

…but I can be patient in the process. Maybe I can even savor it.