Life and Writing

It was high school when I started to label myself a writer.  Teenage angsty is so conducive to emotional poetry; the best way to get back at my parents was to fill in the blank spaces of my bed frame with words strung together to really show them how wrong they were.  Ya know, the usual stuff.  I had a binder that I filled wth pieces of paper that I had scribbled down poems.  A few other friends were writers and we would share with one another, commiserate together, feel ourselves on higher ground somehow, because we knew how to express ourselves.  My first experience with a poet I could connect with was during my senior year, a study of Anne Sexton.  She was dark and sinister, sexy and raw.  She haunted me, and I loved it.  My favorite line stays with me still: "I am a watercolor; I wash off." 

Back in college, when I was making some not-so-great choices, I wrote a lot.  Poetry, prose, personal essays-- daily, I took pen to paper.  Not just for class (which I did plenty of), but I kept a serious journal and at that time, all those years ago (ya know, a whole decade ago), blogs were not the rage they are now, so it was a real paper journal (shocking!).  I wrote about the my lack of a real relationship, about the sort-of relationship I was involved in; I wrote to process and to make sense of the unexpected turns my life had taken.  I had anticipated meeting the man of my dreams in college, planning a wedding, having a career and at the rate I was going, none of that was about to happen. It was okay, truly, and I was having a good time, but I was still dealing with some sense of disillusionment.  So I did what any good English major does and I wrote.  Bad poetry, great poetry, poetry that I would read out loud to myself to gauge the rhythm, the cadence.  And  I read. I read as much as I could get my hands on and wish I had taken advantage of the opportunities that a collegiate atmosphere presents and pushed then to submit my work to competitions.  Who stays with me now? Sharon Olds; T.S. Eliot, Yusef Komunyakaa; Nikki Giovanni, Samuel Coleridge.

I had a few years in my mid twenties where life was unsure, unbalanced.  I wrote a lot then, too.  I read and reread the poets I had loved, finding myself in their lines, their words and wrote then, inspired by them.  I repeatedly came back to the idea of a "Quarter Life Crisis." Here I was at 25 and I had no idea.  I loved my career, and had bought a house all on my own and wondered if I had somehow condemned myself to a life alone.  Not lonely, necessarily, but just alone.  My friends were partnered off and/or having children, and my life was just in a different place.  So I wrote to make sense of it all. 

So now, five years later, things are dramatically different.  I am married to my best best friend, a musician who is not afraid to open up and share his feelings, but can also build a kickass bookshelf and fix whatever needs fixing.  I have children-- one we brought in, one stepson and one biological child.  A teenager, a school aged child and a toddler.  They are all beautiful and smart and funny and have taught me something different about myself and continue to do so.  I truly love being a teacher and actually look forward to Monday mornings. In short, life is as sure as it can ever be, life is balanced.  I feel good and happy and content, while knowing that I always want to be a better person than I am today, and that I will continue to grow and change.  So what do I do?  I don't write. 

What gives?!?  This is the happy life I always wanted, and while I can say that I don't have time or I'm too tired, the reality is that I don't make time for writing.  I blog here once every two weeks or so, which I know isn't enough to keep a real readership going.  But who really wants to hear about my kids' obsession with poop?  Or what things I find on Etsy?  Some of you (and I know that I read blogs about the same things-- yay for being an adult and being a mom!)  But I definitely don't write the poetry I used to because happy poetry just isn't as interesting and I'm happy.  So readers, if you stick with me, you'll get to hear about potty training success (if it ever comes), my sudden onset of desiring another child, my exciting Etsy finds, the joys of teaching and reading, and all of the stuff in between.  Maybe I'll really get to a point of writing for serious again someday (maybe next fall when E is in school and I still have Fridays off?)  Or maybe I'll just write about how much I love Glee and Criminal Minds and how exciting it is when my almost-three year old "reads" a book to me.  And you're welcome along for the ride!