Here I Am

Following the lead of someone I love and admire very much, I decided to join the blogging world. Better late than never, I suppose. At least by using a blog, I shouldn't have to wonder where in the house I've put down my journal. I'm sure I'll find a whole new set of worries.

I have been many things in my life. I tend to fill up every waking moment with something to do, often without regard to whether that something moves me closer to my goals in life. I have a tendancy to approach life with a kind of ADHD. Something grabs my interest, I devour it and then almost as quickly something else piques my interest. As I am now in or approaching middle age, that old nagging voice tells me I should probably pay closer attention and perhaps even make a decision about what I want to be when I grow up.

I have found myself saying over the years that what I've always known what I wanted to be but just never tried that profession. When I was in first grade our teacher gave us an assignment to create the cover of a book on construction paper. Not a real book, but "our" book. Mine was called "Murder on Blood Island". I remember so clearly looking up above the blackboard where she'd placed our creations around the room and thinking "that's what I want to be when I grow up: a writer."

I have been a writer all of my life actually. Friends in college told me they looked forward to receiving letters from me. I seem to recall that I never wrote cutesy shallow ones, but ones full of angst and soul-searching. I wish I had some of those letters now. They would probably be a good substitute for the diary I wasn't keeping in those years.

I have written a lot in my lifetime - had poetry published in a university publication, kept a detailed journal off and on (mostly on since my 20s), served as editor myself of a monthly arts periodical (complete with editor's column). I have never sought to be paid for my work but I plan to in the future. Why didn't I pursue this as a career? Too much fear of failure, too much need for security, too much...what? That's something I do expect to explore here in my blog among other things.

Time's a-wasting, in one way or another. Nothing earth-shattering, but the things in life that are agents of change don't always seem to be. This will be interesting to explore.