It's Not Always Perfect

So on Tuesday, yours truly was contacted by the PR department of one of our favorite debt-free guru's with a radio show.  They had heard our story and had some questions for me. 

Then today, I was contacted again and asked would I consider appearing on the show during a special hour in July as a success story.

The producer then began asking questions about our debt, how much we paid off, how we paid it off, etc.  When I mentioned that we had to incurr some additional debt after Hannah's birth, the producer abruptly ended the conversation.  She said that I would not be able to be a guest because we went backwards during our debt-free journey.

After we hung up, I sat and thought about it.  And it really rankled me.  So...because our story wasn't textbook perfect you don't want people to hear it? 

You know what?  Our debt-free journey was not perfect by any means.  But things happened - LIFE happened.  But I would bet that my story would be 200% more encouraging than hearing person after person say, "We paid off $60,000 in debt in 4 months and our income doubled."  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  That happens to about .034% of us.

How about we get real for a minute?  How about we say:

We worked our butts off, sold everything we could get our hands on, even had to go back in debt thanks to a baby surprise.  I really wanted to throw in the towel and just say screw it all.  Our lives weren't cookie-cutter.  It hurt.  We sacrificed.  We fell.  Over and over we fell.  We got back up.  It was ugly at times.  We cried.  We quit; but the next morning we got started again.  BUT WE NEVER GAVE UP.

So I won't be on the radio.  It's probably for the best.  I used to get terrified to even call the local stations and request a song.  But it is time for someone to say it's ok not to be perfect.  And it's ok to be proud of it.