Moment of Greatness

This was a speech I gave last August in one of my classes...

When first thought about the phrase “A Moment of Greatness”, I thought that there was no way that I could come up with something from my personal life that would be appropriate to count as such a moment. I actually thought about it most of the weekend. I finally figured out that I was wrong.

I moved to Colorado from Pennsylvania in February 2004, after a phone conversation with one of my sisters only two weeks prior to my move. She asked me how my life was going, I told her that it sucked, and the next words out of her mouth were “What can we do to get you out of there?” I arranged for movers to come and pack my things and was gone. I left behind a decent job, my friends, my Mom (who had just moved to Pennsylvania 9 months prior), my wonderful son who was in his sophomore year at a prestigious private high school, and a nearly 16 year marriage filled with physical, mental, and emotional abuse.

I moved into one of my sister’s houses in Boulder and started my life over. I hired a fantastic divorce attorney in Pittsburgh and was divorced within a year of moving to Colorado. It certainly wasn’t easy being in a new city with the only friendly faces being my sisters, but I found a job within a couple of months and started to make new friends. My life was finally starting to be the one I had thought I would have 16 years ago.

In June of 2005 I met a wonderful man who has spent this entire time showing me what a real relationship is supposed to be like. He supports me, encourages me, and most importantly is my best friend. His kindness has allowed me to heal a lot of the wounds from what I call “my past life”. I still have things to work on about myself, but I know he will be there for me. We make long-term plans for our future, and work toward those goals together.

In September 2005, I was in Rome with one of my sisters as part of my birthday present from her and she and I were discussing “life in general”. She mentioned that she had been talking to her husband about what some of her family members could do to help ease some of the financial burden that she and her husband had willingly provided to us. Her solution for me was to go back to college and get my degree. Their generosity is part of the reason I’m back in college over twenty years since my first attempt.

My “moment of greatness” is simply having the courage to make major changes in my life, deal with some trying times, and overcome them. For me, every day is a small “moment of greatness”.