Can I Be a Writer, Too?

Becoming a recognized writer has been a life-long dream and though, for some unknown reason, not a priority. I have written my share of grant applications, funding requests, and even community assessment reports, though writing from my heart and from my life experience is really what I have always dreamed of doing. This is my first real effort to fulfilling that dream. I have more questions and doubts then I do answers. How does a person who has lived a full life as a daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, grandmother and former community leader, transfer all of that life experience into meaningful articles that will provide insight into life for someone else?

I think about what has made me who I am. My father's death from a heart-attack just two days before my 12^th birthday certainly had many impacts on my life. To fill my broken heart I searched for someone who could replace the love I had received from my father. The result of that quest was a teen pregnancy and marriage. Forty-three years later we are still happily married. We raised three daughters who make us very proud, and the eight grandchildren give us an immense amount of joy and pleasure. Another satisfying journey was going back to college at the age of thirty-six and earning a bachelor's degree. My high school diploma was the result of taking several night school classes and competing the required courses and units for graduation. But I was always embarrassed to put on an employment application that I earned my diploma from an evening school, so I would leave that off and just listed the name of the high school.

There were a variety of businesses that I either created or was employed by. My first business venture was selling Christmas related items in friend's homes. I earned enough to purchase a set of drums for my husband, who had given them up to marry me. He could have been a great drummer in any of the rock groups of the late 60's, but he chose to marry me and start a family.