Every Damn Day

My dad died when he was 60. He was a writer. A brilliant one, in my opinion. Albeit I believe his talents were wasted in writing technical manuals for John Deere, he did have an ‘advice’ column that did quite well. Yes, it was also about tractors but the man knew tractors. And they always do say, “Write what you know.”

He loved writing. He was good at it. He could tell a story like few people I have ever known. And yet, once, when asked if he could do it all over, what he would do – I shit you not the man told me he’d be a weatherman. Meteorology really did it for him.

Sometimes that story floats back into my head and I wonder – what would I change if I could do it all over again?

Well. First off, I’d yank myself right out of college because that was utterly useless and expensive. Secondly, holy fucking shit would I go and get myself diagnosed with depression and anxiety and stop thinking that level of unease in literally any social situation is normal. There’s introverted and then there’s ‘wow girl you need prozac’ and I am definitely in the second category. But other than useless debt and finally having a semi normal social life – I wouldn’t change much.

And that’s when it hit me, today. I wouldn’t change much because I’m still reeeeeeeally fucking young. My dad died relatively young (fuck you cancer) and I’m barely half his age.

This is the age to DO it. To change whatever you want to because you can (except the kids, I’m stuck with them, but they’ve started to grow on me) and NOT just coast *stressfully* through the next two decades.

So. In a completely out of character move I am starting now. Today. Not tomorrow. Not when I finish getting the aesthetic just right on my WordPress. Not on Monday (despite how enormously tempting that sounds) but today. And then tomorrow. And then every. damn. day. after.

I am going to write.

Because unlike my closet meteorogically inclined writer father, my dream is in fact to be a writer. And writers write.

Sometimes they write what they know. Sometimes they write what they don’t. Sometimes they write what the dream, hope, wish, fear, and imagine but one thing they all have in common is simply this: they write.

So I write. Today. Tomorrow.

I’ll see you then.