The Permission Slip Nobody Gave Me (So I Wrote My Own)

On reality TV applications, pressing submit before you're ready, and the moment everything changes.

It started with an application. Or three. Okay, five.

Reality shows. Competitions. Ones I wasn't even sure I'd get picked for, let alone survive without sobbing on national television.

But the idea lit something in me I hadn't felt in a long time. And I was done waiting for permission.

I wasn't supposed to be the type. I was a mom. A professor. Someone who knew how to make risotto and fill out FAFSA forms. Not someone filming casting videos on her patio in her robe, whispering into her phone: "I'm the one you want."

And yet, one morning, coffee in hand, still in said robe, I pressed submit. And laughed out loud.

Not because I was certain it would go somewhere. But because I knew I had already gone somewhere different. Just by saying yes.

In the end, I didn't get on those shows. Much to my wife Mercy's relief, honestly. She was considerably less excited about watching me jump out of helicopters or eat questionable things on national television than I was. (She is the reasonable one. I am not.)

But somewhere between filming auditions, answering impossible casting questions, and imagining myself saying yes to something wildly outside my comfort zone, I realized something. I'd already gotten exactly what I needed.

The applications were never really about getting cast.

They were an experiment in becoming the kind of person who raises her hand.

That click, the one that sent the form, started the video, said yes to the ridiculous thing, that was the rebellion.

Not against anyone else. Against the smaller version of myself I kept defaulting to. The one who waited her turn. The one who didn't want to inconvenience anyone. The one who thought reinvention had to come with a roadmap, a plan, and at least three people telling her it was a good idea first.

I didn't have any of that.

I had a robe, a cup of coffee, and a deadline. And temporary insanity.

That was enough.

Here's what nobody tells you about permission: for most of our lives, we've tied our worth to the roles we play. Mother. Daughter. Partner. Professional. We perform those roles so well, and for so long, that we forget they were ever a choice.

And somewhere in all that performing, we start to wait.

For approval. For support. For proof we're not crazy. For someone to hand us the green light and say: now it's your turn.

But that's not how it works. No one is coming with a gold star and a permission slip.

You have to write it yourself.

That's the part that sounds simple and isn't. Because writing your own permission slip means admitting what you actually want, which is…well…terrifying! It means raising your hand before you're ready, which is risky as hell. It means moving before you have the whole plan, which is just uncomfortable enough to feel irresponsible.

Do it anyway.

You don't have to know where you're going. You just have to move.

Press submit. Start the video. Open the document. Book the class. Apply for the thing. Say yes before your brain catches up and calls you freaking nuts.

The roadmap will reveal itself. It always does.

But first you have to go.

REBEL CHALLENGE

Write your own permission slip.

Pull out your phone, open a note, grab a napkin — whatever's in reach. Finish this sentence:

I give myself permission to...

Then say it out loud. Put it on your fridge. Text it to a friend. Send it to yourself. Hell, write in on the back of your hand like you did in 4th grade. Just, make it real enough that you can't take it back.

One bold move this week.

Choose one thing you've been secretly wanting to try — the thing that lives in the back of your mind and makes you nervous when you think about it too directly. Then take one small action toward it this week.

Book the class. Open the damn document. Fill out the application. Film the video.

Don't wait until you're ready. You won't be ready. That's not how this works.

Just begin.

This essay is part of the Become series on Empty Nest Rebellion.

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