I have spent 50 years doing as I have been told, as I have been advised, as seemed best by the masses. It has brought me a living but one washed in doubt, grayness, and despair. No longer. I will write my own story, and if I fail I will do so with my spirit in tact, instead of surviving in dreary mediocrity for someone else’s dream.
It’s not often I have something burst into my mind fully formed. But this thought, once tangled up with so many others, broke free from the pack today. I stopped what I was doing, full stop. My hands dropped, the sheet drifted to the floor, the dog started from beneath the sheet, and my world tilted, it was that kind of stop.
As many of you might surmise, I’m trying something very new for myself. I’ve finally given myself permission to follow my dream of being a writer. Win or lose, fly or fail, I am allowed to pursue this for myself. Not for my family, not for my father, not to fulfill expectations that my brother couldn’t shoulder, but to define my self by myself.
I would love to insert something witty or humorous about being a late bloomer right about now. But, I’m determined not to look backwards at all the ‘wasted’ time, because as a writer, I call it fodder. So here is a thought… Gardens use manure to bloom.