Eighty Years Old: Death Bed

For years now I’ve had this vision, that someday I’m going to regret pieces of my life. Perhaps this is inevitable but there’s one thing that I can foresee so clearly.  I see myself as an old woman with white hair sitting in bed with a pale blue blanket pulled up to my waist.  The bed is next to a window, the curtains are open, the room is bright with sunlight.  I’m at a point at which it’s far too late for me to make any significant changes.  I sit alone, wallowing in my disappointment. 

This older version of myself is always sort of lingering in the back of my mind.  Coming to warn me and urge me to write, to not let my passion or my talent go to waste. She stays with me for a while and I tell myself I’m going to heed her warning.  Then time gets away from me, as it often does, and I don’t do much writing.  She isn’t giving up on me though, she returns to my consciousness to remind me again.  She’s here now.  I can feel her sorrow at the lost time, the lost dream.  Since I began writing this blog I feel creative again.  Writing makes my soul happier.   My characters and their stories that always float about in my imagination are getting louder, begging me to do something with them.  But still she’s here, I’m not doing enough.  I need to write more, do what I’ve always felt I’m supposed to be doing.  

I caught the writing bug in fifth grade.  This was the first time I felt the thrill of my words having an affect on people.  I don’t remember exactly what the assigned essay topic was but I wrote about my cat, Lovey and about how she died.  My essay was picked as one of the best by my classmates and I had to read it aloud in front of the class.  It felt amazing to be recognized in this way. One day when I was in sixth grade I came home from school and just started writing poems.  I think I wrote over twenty short little poems that afternoon.  I haven’t stopped writing, or at least, stopped thinking about it ever since.  I wrote anything and everything.  I wrote novellas in which I imagined meeting the New Kids on the Block.  I filled journals with poetry and hand wrote novels that I called “teen books,” which are all the rage now. 

Boxes of my writings that sit in my closet

When it came time to decide what I wanted to do or be when I grew up all I could think of was writing.  There wasn’t any career or thing that I could see myself doing, that was it.  I was going to go for it.  I got my Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing.  After that I didn’t have a job to step right into, so why not keep going to school?  I got my Master’s in Creative Writing.  Once I finished that, what was next?  Other than write I still had no career aspirations.  Realistically, I knew I was always going to have to do something other than write to make a living.  I would have to make time to write on the side and hope that one day I’d make something happen with it.

I watched other people go to school and get the jobs that they had studied to do.  Two of my sisters did this, one of whom is a teacher and the other a social worker.  I’ve always been jealous of people that get paid to do what they love.  People asked me why I didn’t get a job as a writer in a company somewhere.  But that wasn’t the kind of writing I wanted to do.  I didn’t want to just write for writings sake.  I wanted to be a creative writer and write what I wanted.  In reality, I guess I’ve always known what I wanted.  Because I have had always had other jobs, I’ve always felt like I’ve been searching for what I really want.  I’ve been very lucky to work for great companies and to excel in my positions, but all the while I long to make writing my full time job.

In forty plus years I don’t want to regret not doing what I wanted to do.  That I didn’t work hard enough at it, or accomplish anything with it.  As I write this I’m sitting in my car before work.  As I walk inside and sit down at my desk I’ll feel an ache, a twinge of sadness because I’d rather be working on my novel or writing a blog post.  Other writers can find time to work and write, raise kids and write, live and write--why can’t I?  I need to make it a priority.  I need to be disciplined enough to work at and follow this dream.  I often think of the saying, “Do what you love and the rest will follow.”  I hope I can make this true for me.  

This posting has been more about me than being a mother, but is still about how time can just get away from you.  Though, in many ways I think this is about my kids too.  I want both Zoey and Hunter to feel free enough to follow their passions.  I don’t remember my mom trying to steer me away from pursuing writing, to choose something else.  I want to do the same for my kids.  I want them to find something they love and be able to go out and do it.  If they choose a creative path I want them to run on that path with more fervor than I have up to this point.  

Coincidentally, this week, in the midst of writing this, one of my grandmothers has been on her death bed.  As she slips away, I wonder if she ever looked back on her life with regret.  I imagine she must have as this has to be a natural part of life and death.  In a way I hope she did to an extent, as none of us can live a perfect life.  

But I’m not eighty or on my death bed yet.  I’m not that sad woman looking back on her life.  I’m not even halfway to being her.  I still have time to follow my heart, fulfill my dreams.  One of the best ways for me to show Zoey and Hunter that they can follow their dreams is to do it myself.  Whenever I falter I’m sure my future self will return and get me back on the track that I should’ve been on all along. 

The early Birthday present I gave myself to help me get writing.
I love this thing!