A Bit About Me

           Almost 30 years ago, my best friend, Leitha, dragged me kicking and screaming to a six-week goal setting class.  (Okay, maybe I was just whimpering and a bit bewildered.)  She, on the other hand, was kicking around the idea of perhaps going to college now that her own children were grown.  I still didn’t have a clue what I would pursue as a goal, but I dutifully did the first assignment and returned the following week with my homework.  Our task was to describe what a perfect day would look like if there were no obstacles or limitations.  I decided that meant I could be as outrageous as I wanted, so I pulled out my creative license and went full speed ahead.   

My resulting 11 pages chronicled an action-packed day starting at sunrise awaking full of energy after hitting my sleep goal and included appearing on Oprah’s show and my husband getting a hair transplant.   It wrapped up at bedtime with me reveling in how throughout the day, I was always on time, my hair always looked great and I even had lost a few pounds to boot. 

Imagine my chagrin when the teacher of the class asked the other five attendees what their perfect day would look like and it amounted to a paragraph, an outline, or even just a few brief words!  Luckily, she noticed my crestfallen face and the carefully typed pages in front of me and allowed me to read mine.  After hearing the laughs at all the right places and the burst of applause at the end – a goal was born.

Over the next year as I wrapped up my home day care career (no one, and I mean no one, should have to have a two-year old in their home for 12 years) I wrote during nap time and went on to publish a few short stories in obscure magazines and even wrote two 150-page children’s books that only my closest friends have been forced to read.  I then went to work in an orthodontic office (or as I preferred to say, working for the Teeth Police where our job was to put crooked culprits behind bars and not turn them loose until we set them all straight).  The only thing I wrote during the past 25 years was my yearly Christmas newsletter, but I always said after I retired, I would get back to my long-lost goal.

I’ve been retired now for 18 months and while I enjoy it immensely, I still haven’t done any writing.  But then I heard about a very creative group of writers who meet weekly to share, critique, and spur each other on.  What better motivator than to have accountability shared by people who have a burning desire to not just say something but also to be heard.  By just showing up here with some written words, I’m back on track.  And instead of bemoaning my loss of 28 years of productivity, I will just say I dedicated those decades to research!