Tag Archives: Writer

The Chosen

Full moon rises outside the window
Two deadweight bodies radiating body heat
Legs across mine
Claiming me as their own even in sleep
I don’t mind
I have been theirs since the moment I could finally hold them in my arms instead of vaguely curse at them to get the fuck out of me

Tension rises outside the door
Voices raised as emotions are expressed
Two people learning how to love each other again
How to belong to each other
And themselves
I don’t mind
I have been there, walked those exact steps, been overcome and overwhelmed and desperate
And came out the other side with more love than I ever believed possible

Words rise inside of me
Always wanting to get out
Past my tied tongue and my half open eyes and stiff fingers they demand release
I don’t mind
Racing across the page they are the wind in my sails
Pulling the weight from my heart and pouring it on the page they are my anchor
They are my breath in good times and bad

We rise out of expectations
Insisting on making our own way
Laying down the burdens of antiquated ideals
Ignoring the calls for self sacrifice from the same lips that call us entitled
I love him I love her they love me we love
And I don’t mind
The side eye when I introduce my partnerS
Call myself a witch
Or hear my child drop the f bomb at story time
Because at the end, when I walk into the light again, I will never wonder what my life would have been like if I had chosen it instead of accepted what I was given

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.