So why am I doing this?

Growing up I always thought I wanted to be a writer. I even wrote a short story in grade school called “The Sandpit Mystery”. I liked to read. I especially liked choose-your-own-endings books. As a young adult I started a work of fiction based on the King Arthur, knights of the round table theme that fascinated me. That was left unfinished. The older I get I find the less I read and I drift more and more away from the writing that I loved to do.

I have an obsession with stationary. I love new pens, fancy paper, notebooks. I love the smell and the feel of them. During back to school season I wander the aisles of any store selling school supplies with a goofy smile on my face, picking up items that I really don’t need because they make me happy.

I journalled for a time in my life, capturing moments in my life which I felt were significant, new boyfriends, special events with friends, difficult situations and times that I was going through. Fortunately for me I had done this and during my first marriage, which ended in divorce, as I needed all of this documentation during a lengthy annulment process.  I probably should have continued journalling however I was always afraid someone (like my teenage son) might find and read my writings and I felt they were far too personal and at times TMI for my son to need to read.

As I’m about to turn 48 in just over a month I find myself at a divergence in my life.  Not sure if it’s perspective given to me by age or something to do with astrology and the alignment of planets but it has certainly been a year of change and self-discovery.  SO much has happened during this year and I feel the need to reflect on it, to look deeper at it and above all to start writing again.  I have always been a believer that people come into your life for a reason, whether it be the impact you have on them, or that they have on you, or both.  In the past year so many new people have come into my life.  Through interacting with all of these people I have gained much more insight into who I am, what I need and who I want to be. Many of these people and events have touched my spiritually and emotionally and have taught me what I think are important life lessons.

With regards to returning to writing, a couple of notable people have awoken in me the desire to, for lack of a better phrase, put pen to paper (in today’s world however it has become fingers to keyboard). I would be remiss not to acknowledge these two women who have inspired me to at least on the very basic level pour out my thoughts and feelings again.  They have both become friends and are certainly women I admire and look up to.  One is video game writer Ann Lemay who I met recently at a comic convention and the other is author H.Leighton Dickson for whom I only recently began working for as her personal assistant for a volunteer organization.  However the real inspiration behind starting this journey into writing was another friend who recently reminded me “There’s a difference between your dream and the passion that creates that dream. And if the dream doesn’t work out, you don’t have to throw both away”. And so even though I may never write a book and have it published I’m not going to throw away the passion of my dream and I’m hoping through this outlet I can stir up some of that passion again.