Where the Road Begins

At twenty-seven I started to write poetry, not very good poetry, but nonetheless, it seemed to soothe my soul. As time moved on, I wrote more and more, always poetry, and then other times I would keep a daily journal. I carried a small notebook everywhere I went, and I would furiously write in it all the time. It was my way of recording what I was seeing in the world, and then my feelings about it. It was therapeutic, cathartic, and enlightening at times.

I remember going to a few psychics over the years, and each one would ask me the same thing, "Do you write?" Each time I would be amazed that they picked up on it. They told me to keep doing it no matter how much I felt like giving it up. They said if you continue with it, you will be published one day. Now that is very vague, but why mention writing? That would have been too lucky a guess. Anyhow, of course they never told me when this would happen. They can't really. Time is something that has so many unexpected variables, it's easy to get hung up where things will take longer than they should have.

I've never forgotten what they said though, and I keep that in the back of my mind, believing that maybe one day I will be good enough, and have the confidence to move forward and go after it. To have a written work published is probably the greatest achievement for anyone who loves to write. It's a validation, a symbol that it's real and not just a notion in our minds. That book is somewhere being pulled off the shelf, and someone is gently thumbing through the pages to get a feel for it, see if they should take it home. They're holding it in their hands and they're reading it. It's real.

Being a writer - Is it a dream we can't let go of? Is it a destiny of some divine plan? Is it a passion we can't shake from our core? It's all those things, I think, that make up who we are, and what we're meant to do. Every day when you believe in yourself a little bit more, you find the roadmap gets easier to follow. The direction takes shape, and that one road, that one squiggly line, is yours and you're the only one traveling on it. I think we all have our own map, with our own special squiggly line, and we just have to know when it's time to follow it.