so-so-anthology

Sometimes we run with reckless abandon at the person we want to be in our future. Whether we're tromping clumsily down a dirt path pocked with ruts and holes or striding steadily on a perfectly paved asphalt byway, we are bound to trip and fall somewhere along the way.

My love for writing began with a pink and white diary with gold-edged papers that sounded like tissue paper when I turned them. It had a lock, of course, and was typically hidden under my bed because although my stories were fraught with invention and whimsy, I had little imagination when it came to hiding my most personal possession.

I have had journals and diaries since the pink one. It seems as though every time I moved, broke up, made up, or changed my major in college, I celebrated by purchasing a blank canvas for my new memoirs. They're all here. In my house somewhere. Some have pictures drawn in them. One was given to me by my daughter's father to pen down my new adventures in parenting, but remains only a quarter of the way filled. Appropriate- considering how many changes I've gone through since she was born six years ago. I crack one open now and then when the house is empty or freakishly quiet.

My online journals are still out there, suspended in the interweb. Although I can no longer recall the login information for any of them, I still can view them. I can see who I was. Or who I was trying to be. I can relive the moment I met my husband through an entry written five years ago. I can see myself grow up as entries caught up in boys and spats with girlfriends slowly morphed into complexities like an unexpected pregnancy and my father's death.

Today I carry spiral notebooks. A practical alternative to the tiny padlocked sort. The latest is green and has a Mother Falcon sticker slapped on the front and half-written stories and blog ideas scribbled inside. Since Sam has been born it's pages see the light a little less. I have to choose how to spend these quiet moments and more often than not, I reach for my laptop. I'm comfortable here. This blog is cozy.

I'm a writer. I write. Nobody has to read the things I put down for this to be true. It's what I've always wanted for myself. What I've been running at. Sometimes at top speed, but more frequently zigging and zagging- chased by life's responsibilities. I'm getting closer to the writer I want to be, but still I'm uncertain if I'll ever get to shake her hand.

September was supposed to be the month I posted every day. Life interrupts, as with most things I do for myself, and it's been three...no...four days? Maybe next month. Maybe never. Surely someone will be clicking and waiting for news, a laugh, a good cry. Even if it's just me.

Anyway. Thanks for stopping by.