As quick as it started, it ended. A friend of mine once told me that she thinks I suffer from A.D.D. I’m starting to suspect that she is right. The words start to flow in my head and if I don’t immediately get them all down, they go away. It’s like there’s this pathway to this hidden creativity that roams the world. If I don’t grasp the idea as quick as it comes, it will go away and fall on someone else’s shoulder. Make their way to a known, published writer or some word genius who sits around waiting…leaving me with a desire to become a published and successful writer one day.
At times I wonder if this dream will ever come true. I’ve wanted this from the time I was a little girl. Actually, I think I wanted to run my own publication. I started with my spin on the New York newspaper, The Daily News…I called it The Daily Kids. The paper started as an attempt to make candy money. I sold it for twenty five cents a copy. I was also under the impression that whatever was written or printed on paper, in coupon form, would be honored. So, I created coupons for the things that I wanted. Barbie’s and dollhouses, books and stationary. Sometimes, my mom would honor them and other times, she would laugh and say that she would buy it when she won the lottery. To this day, she owes me soo much!
As I got older, the dream kinda sorta faded. I began to concern myself with the things that other kids were worried about. Hair, clothes, music and who was cute and who wasn’t. My road map was thrown off track. Soon after I got married and my priorities changed. My passion became my husband and my household. I wanted to start a family and was heading in that direction. Eventually, I lost myself and my dreams. Being a writer was far from my thoughts. Occasionally, I would right in my journal. I found that I only wrote when I was down about something. It was my release. As my marriage began to fail, my words became my only sanctuary.
I didn’t rely on them as much as I should’ve. I did start to count on alcohol a whole lot more. In fact, it became my best friend. I became addicted to that feeling of NOT feeling. It felt good to not be in control. To follow that initial instinct and not worry about the consequences made me happy. At least, I felt happy at the moment. The morning after was a whole other story. After making several mistakes, one of which was drunk driving, I decided a change was in order. Thankfully, I did not injure someone or myself, but I did wake up the next morning in my bed with no recollection of leaving the club, driving home or crawling into bed. I was done.
I don’t know what changed in my at that moment, but I have never again been that intoxicated and I am very well aware of my limits in regards to drinking. With that said, I had the desire in my to write at that point, but I didn’t know where or how to start. Keep in mind, that my whole life, prior to that, I never had to work at words. They just came to me. But, now I found myself fighting for the words. Craving to have them embedded in my brain and have them flow out on my computer or on paper.
Lines came out at me, but not full paragraphs. I followed my other passion…reading. I began picking up books. Each word was a struggle that I never had to face before. But, I forced myself to get into it. I read, not for pleasure but because I had to. I had to rediscover my love of words. No matter how horrible the book, I was going to force my brain to like it. It was a learning experience after all.
After some time, the words slowly began to make their way back to me. Little by little poetry formed, then I discovered blogging. Disorganized thoughts became post. I even joined a writing group. One day, one of my writing mates, came up with a writing schedule. If we wanted to be published writers, we had to dedicate time. I was going to do this. I was going to write a book.
Well, the time that I was supposed to dedicate to my best selling novel, became dominated by my blog post. Each becoming organized and reader friendly, but again, I had no direction. I created a new blog after joining a blog challenge. This was going to be the beginning of awesome. I was going to be a writer. I even had business cards made.
As I sit in this French café, enjoying my Mochacchino and croissant, I have yet to figure out the direction I want to take as a writer. It’s a dream that I have held for a very long time in my heart. The words still struggle and for the first time I find myself working towards something. I have decided that I have job security and I feel comfortable where I am right now. But, this is not where I want to see myself when I am forty. My dream is to become a writer. My dream is to live part time in New York City with my apartment being steps away from The Village. I want to jog in Central Park in the morning and catch the train to have dinner with my mom by Yankee Stadium. The flame has not burned out, it’s being re-ignited and I will reach my goal. One word at a time…
