Are you a 'gonna'?

byNorahJ

513 followers

8 years ago

When I was fifteen I spent a summer working in a hotel in a busy seaside resort on Ireland’s east coast. It was a mecca for young people at the time and, suffice to say, work was not the reason I was there - which was unfortunate as the owner was a bona fide dragon lady.

She’d ask if I’d completed a task and my invariable response was “I’m just gonna do it Mrs Mac”. It never went down well and as she was surrogate mother while we were under her roof, she had the power to punish. And punish she did. I missed a lot of dances in the local hall that summer.

What I haven’t missed since then is the gonna approach. I’ve never forgotten how bad she used to make me feel and I firmly believe she’s the reason I get stuff done.

This week I had to tell someone I couldn’t help them because “I don’t live in Auckland anymore”. It struck me then that although it had taken me 10 years to get out of Auckland I had finally done it.

Before we came to New Zealand in 2005 we’d never intended to go to Auckland but the Man’s family had moved there from Wellington and it seemed silly to have travelled 12,000 miles to be close to them, and then be on the other side of the country. We never settled though and for years we said we were gonna move out of the city and live in real New Zealand.

While I was dreaming of the place I was gonna live, I was also dreaming of the book I was gonna write and how I was gonna work from home. I've crossed off all of those now.

You can spend your whole life dreaming of the things you’re gonna do but unless you take that first step you’re never gonna do anything.

If you don’t start, you’re never gonna finish.