As I Walk These Steps
The learning begins with the help from a higher power
Life is a learning process, but we are not born knowing this. Growing up there are a lot of times we can be disappointed, and more time alone. As an adult we come to learn by interacting with others out of small circles (family, teachers, and friends). Also, when we are younger, challenges we face only have knowledge of what we are told. But still we learn.
I always believed that there is a higher power out there bigger than us. Some people think of this higher power as God, some people think of this higher power as the universe, and there are other people that think of it as something that was going to happen. It does not matter what each individual thinks, it just matters that they are comfortable with how they feel.
As a young child I had many obstacles, challenges, and heartbreaks before I was even 6. I know we all have a story I am not so much making this about me. At the age 5 I fell off a second floor porch and almost died. Even until this day doctors say I am a miracle. They sit across from me and tell me. They cannot believe I am here.
However, the learning that came out of this is strength, knowledge, and power. Being young I had no idea what to make of it, or how to even muddle through. As an adult, it becomes clearer daily. Unfortunately, you still have many challenges like some things are more confusing than others, you do not see things the same way in work, school, or life. Most of my life I resented the fact that it was so hard for me to learn. But a higher power gave me the correct tools in my life to use once I began to see things more clearly.
I was a single mother and had to work several jobs all the time. I did not know what it was like to work just one job. My friends had weekends, but I worked pretty much every weekend. I even worked two jobs most days, while going to college. Yes, life was challenging. One day I was approached by the USCG, because of an activity I was doing. I was a part of the USCG Auxiliary educating children and adults on the importance of marine and environmental science. The students were always excited learning different things, and honestly they are smarter than us. They get the importance of the environment. Not sure why some adults do not. Anyway, I mention the USCG, because my flotilla commander was my angel, my tool that was handed to me by a power above. He knew I had challenges, and guided me through them.
There was a time in my life when I could not find work. I took a job making $8/hr after graduating college when I had just left a job making $20. Not fair at all. This economy is back to doing something similar almost 20 years later. I remember before my aunt passed away I would tell her I have interview after interview I still cannot find work. I do not get it. I was a supervisor, site director, and in the USCG Auxiliary what is going on? Till this day I feel she was my angel when she passed away the day of her funeral I had an interview and got the job.
As most of us are experiencing right now the economy is very shaky, and even though some will tell you there are so many jobs right now. There are not. Don't believe me try to get a job. You will see. Anyway, the economy is crushing right now. What you thought was good money two years ago is not now. I had been looking for work, and honestly this amazing job called me. As I prayed I got it. What I learned and try to tell everyone you have to believe not just by saying it, but pray to your guides, or people who have passed on. They are listening.
For each step I climbed along with the challenge I faced I learned something out of it. I learned I can accomplish obstacles, I can get through it, and I will be ready to face the next one when it presents itself to me. I also learned that by helping others when they face something similar by helping them get through it is another step I can climb. Knowledge is power, but helping others is more powerful. For every step that I climbed, it was another lesson I learned, and a gift given to me through the strength of it all.
Written by,
Cheryl A Nocera
About the Creator
Cheryl A Nocera
I am an educator, writer, photographer, and singer song writer. I have a podcast [email protected], and talk show CTS: Cheryl's Talk Show on Spotify I love to share & learn new things. Come join me on this adventure.
Cheryl A Nocera
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For the longest time, I believed my life was simply paused. Not broken. Not finished. Just waiting. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for the right person. Waiting for something—anything—to arrive and change everything. I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for, but I was sure it would come. People always said things like “It’ll get better” or “Your time will come”, and I clung to those words like promises written in invisible ink. I believed that if I endured long enough, life would eventually reward my patience. So I waited. I waited quietly, because I didn’t want to be a burden. I waited politely, because I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. I waited silently, because I didn’t even know how to explain what was wrong. From the outside, my life looked acceptable. I functioned. I showed up. I smiled when it was expected of me. I laughed at jokes that didn’t reach my heart. I answered “I’m fine” so often that it started to feel like muscle memory. But inside, something was eroding. Every day felt heavier than the last, like I was carrying a weight that kept growing while no one was looking. I woke up tired, went to bed tired, and spent the hours in between pretending I wasn’t. There was a quiet exhaustion that sleep couldn’t touch—a tiredness that came from constantly hoping for relief that never arrived. I thought suffering had to be loud to be real. I thought pain needed witnesses to matter. Mine had neither. There was no dramatic breaking point, no single moment when everything fell apart. Instead, it unraveled slowly. Almost gently. Like a thread pulled so gradually you don’t notice the fabric weakening until it’s too late. I kept telling myself, Just hold on a little longer. Surely someone would notice. Surely someone would step in. Surely life wouldn’t let me keep feeling this way forever. But life did. And then one day—an ordinary day that didn’t announce its importance—I realized something that changed everything. Nobody was coming. That realization didn’t arrive with clarity or relief. It arrived like grief. Heavy. Sharp. Unforgiving. I remember sitting alone, staring at nothing in particular, and feeling the truth settle into my bones. There would be no rescue. No sudden turning point delivered by someone else’s effort. No moment where everything magically aligned and lifted me out of my own life. It wasn’t that people didn’t care. It was that everyone was busy surviving their own storms. I had been waiting for someone to save me from a life that only I was living. And for a while, that realization shattered me. I felt abandoned by the world, betrayed by hope itself. I questioned every prayer I had whispered into the dark, every moment I had chosen patience over action. I wondered if I had misunderstood life completely—if the promises I believed in were never meant for people like me. I mourned the version of myself who thought endurance alone was enough. There is a special kind of loneliness that comes from realizing your pain is invisible. That no matter how heavy it feels to you, the world keeps moving at the same pace. Bills still need to be paid. Responsibilities still demand attention. Smiles are still expected. So I kept going. But something inside me had cracked open. Once you see the truth, you can’t unsee it. And the truth was this: waiting had become my hiding place. Hope, without action, had become an excuse to stay small. I had been standing still, convincing myself that stillness was strength. It wasn’t. Saving myself didn’t begin with confidence. It began with fear. Fear of staying the same. Fear of waking up ten years later in the same emotional place. Fear of realizing that I had wasted my own life waiting for permission to live it. I didn’t suddenly become brave. I became tired of being helpless. The first steps were almost embarrassing in their simplicity. There was nothing poetic about them. 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