Remembering Why I Started

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have turned 81 today had he not passed away 6 years ago. Losing dad was tough as he was the only parent I had who truly loved me. And he influenced me tremendously. From him I developed a love of reading--he was my library connection. When I exhausted all the books at our small town's library, I raided his bookshelves and found The Hobbit (4th grade), John Steinback and more. From him I learned to be curious and creative and focused on the task at hand.

When I was a child I wanted to be many things: a vet, a movie star (what self respecting girl wouldn't want fame???), and a journalist. I always wrote. Journals, poems, fantasy stories and more. I was fated to write. Yet, due to the "other parent" my life took many strange turns. As one fellow writer said to me, "life hijacked me."

Big time.

I was on my own at 16, working as a waitress, and a highschool drop out. Writing for a living was not an option although I never stopped dreaming.

Fast forward to 2002. Married, college educated, a mother, a friend, and still a dreamer. Dad was very ill. My husband, daughter and I traveled North to see him one more time. During that visit, he needed closure. A way to say goodbye and a way to say he was sorry. Part of that regret was due to his failure to protect me from an abusive parent. A parent who didn't want me to succeed, who wanted me to lose my zest for life, who wanted to derail every dream I had as impossible.

I'll never forget when he turned to me, regret in his eyes, and said it was "too late for me to be a writer." At the time, I believed him. I had laid my dream to rest and was pursuing the idea of becoming a personal life coach. Heck, I am an enthusiastic person and I've encouraged so many people in achieving their dreams, I figured why not get paid for it? I absolved him of his own guilt and said it was okay. I was okay. And I really was doing great.

But the dream that had lain dormant resurrected on that day. And a few months later, I trotted out an old half started manuscript, and I finished it! I sent it off in a query and fantastically, got a request. No. The story doesn't end with a published novel. No. The first book I wrote is not that great and will never be published. However, it will never be forgotten. It is the first book I wrote. I proved to myself it was not too late for me to write. And since that first book churned out of me, I have written two other books.

On Dad's birthday, I wish I could say to him that it's not too late. That I am a writer. And I will, with a lot of luck and hard work, be published one day.