Twenty Years Ago Today

Twenty years ago today, a day after my 12th birthday, I started what I consider to be a "serious journal." As a kid, I had several One-Year Diaries, and, even at the ripe old age of eleven, didn't like being put in a box. I hated the feeling of missing days and feeling as though I'd somehow disappointed somebody, somewhere.

So the plan was to buy a simple notebook and begin my "serious journal" on my 12th birthday. Something happened and I didn't get that notebook in time. Hence, it was June 2, 1990, that my true writing career began. Sixty-six and a half novellas later, I can tell you--and anyone else, for that matter--that it was perhaps the best decision I've ever made and the one thing that has most defined who I am to the world and who I am to myself.

I'm a writer.

I'm also a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend, hopefully in that order. I am many things, as are all of us modern mothers, trying to make it all work on so many levels. I work part-time at a pretty important job. I dream of building a home on the family land on which I grew up. I'd like to be published, to write a novel or an autobiography. And it feels like it's time.

So, today, without much planning and much thought, I'm launching a blog. I'm not at 100% mentally right now. I've had a tough month. I've got three kids each under the weather in his or her own way. There's a raging thunderstorm outside my windows. I'm tired.

But, tonight, I celebrate me. I celebrate the time and space I've carved out for me to be a journalist. I celebrate the fact that I've had an amazing and interesting life and that the majority of it is down on paper, in longhand, in my own words. I celebrate both the miracle and the scariness of that written history.

And, as I search my soul for what I might end up doing with that written history, I invite you to read along. I've got about a million stories to tell, so I figure as long as I want to write this blog, I'll have the content. I'm not sure who my audience is, what my intent is or even whether or not this blog will exist in a month, but, for now, I feel like writing if you feel like reading.

These are my reasons.