Finding My Voice

In order to gain insight and a belief in my ability and intent to write, I have sought out the work of local authors to make it feel more human to me and thus more possible.  Here in San Diego, novelist Margaret Dilloway and non-fiction, self-help author Debbie Ford have both been of interest, and I recently read "The Red Skirt Memoirs of an Ex Nun," by Patricia O'Donnell-Gibson, from whom we bought our house in Michigan, although I never met her personally.  Through Facebook, I've also renewed friendships with those from high school who have successfully made writing their career.  My friends Kitty Broihier and Sondra Dee Garrison actually spent time honing their craft in college, whereas I have little more than an excellent high school English department to bank on (thank you, SJHS and Mrs. Nealer, much as I may have despised it at the time, and Mr. Hop, who inspired and encouraged me and so many others, including my step-daughter the year he retired), and I have always operated at my own speed, especially when it comes to believing in myself.

There's a saying by Dr. Seuss, "Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"  Well, I've spent my entire life trying and feeling as though I failed to fit in, fighting that fact and vacillating between being proud and feeling bad that I'm just different.  I have always enjoyed the spotlight, while others may shy away from it and look at me as though I'm an alien.  I was a single mom before all the celebrities were doing it.  I certainly didn't fit the mold of the corporate employee when I worked at Whirlpool.  I have enjoyed having standard poodles because of the attention they attract since people don't see them every day (and the no slobbering and no shedding parts, which kinda rock).  And I've had to relearn practically everything about parenting that was successful with our daughters, because our son is a different creature with unique needs.  And it only took me six years to make that boy; later in life when anybody my age with any sense was finished building their families.  Let's face it; times they have a'changed very much so from when we raised our girls.  Did I say I have always operated at my own speed?  There was a reason I was dubbed The Poky Puppy in Kindergarten, and I’m stubborn, too.

It isn't as though people have told me my whole life that I'm not worthy; quite the opposite, in fact.  The spotlight I enjoyed so much when I was younger came from my singing, for which I received a lot of appreciation, support and encouragement.  But it's almost as if singing was too easy.  My words were different.  They were personal, and they were my (crazy?) thoughts and feelings...things I was afraid to put out there for the world to see.  I did have teachers who encouraged me about writing, from as far back as grade school.  I can vividly remember Mrs. Schroeder telling me in fifth grade how descriptive my writing was.  And during one of the most difficult times in my life, working in corporate America and so not fitting in, a communications consultant I'd befriended told me that I had the ability to impact people someday.  College just never happened, but motherhood did, and years of keeping my words to myself made any confidence I may have once had falter.  I occasionally showed my daughters bits of my writing and they liked it, but what else could they say?  What if everybody my whole life was just humoring me?   I mean, watch American Idol auditions for five minutes and you realize there are plenty of people whose families delude them into thinking they’re great.

Well this is me.  Operating at my own speed.  In my forties, I'm finally coming to accept that maybe I don't have to be Special, I just have to be Willing.  Everything I write doesn't have to be Brilliant, it just has to be Good, and it's OK to do it just for myself.  Writing daily does seem to be having a positive effect on quieting my mind, and that's a good thing.  At some point, however, I have to be willing to risk rejection, to risk people rolling their eyes and thinking, "Who does she think she is?"  (Probably my worst fear and what has paralyzed me more than anything else over the years.)  In the meantime, if you get something from what I write, GREAT!  If not, as my very encouraging friend and “writing colleague,” Sondra Dee Garrison said, "There's plenty to go around."  There exists something out there that will resonate with you, and in turn, what I write will surely resonate with someone.  Anyone?  Hello?    


Check out the Blogrolls here.         Cross-posted to West Coast Posse, which will be home in April.

  

Wow! October 2006 was my first and last entry!

"What in the world have I been doing since then," you might ask. You might wonder if I'm still gluten free and whether or not I ever registered for that schooling I was talking about. Well yes, I'm still gluten free, and yes, I did register for the school. I am deeply ashamed to admit, however, that after my dear husband paid for the course and the books, my ADD brain couldn't seem to ever begin! I got completely stuck when it came to actually starting a lesson or doing an assignment.

Which is pretty much the story of my life.

It seems that I'm just not a self-starter kind of a gal. I require bricks and mortar, instructors in my face, accountability to force me to be answerable to someone other than myself! Why is it that keeping a promise to myself or not letting myself down is never enough? Why am I never enough? Why did I start a blog almost five years ago and never ever go back to it after one measly entry? Well, I'm no psychologist, so I don't have an answer. But psychology is another one of those things I thought I might do someday.

I've started and never finished more things than I can count. I've let down friends, family members, my own husband, but the person I've let down the most is myself, because I've known me the longest. Maybe it all started when I was a kid and never did my homework. Maybe it began with my mom telling me to go clean my room and then never checking to see whether or not I did it. I've felt this cast of shame over my life for as long as I can remember, and maybe it's because I've never been my own best friend.

We recently made a huge, very scary, life altering move from Michigan to San Diego, CA. We left my hometown, a house we'd lived in for 12 years, in an idyllic town where my kids wanted to always come home, and where I had every expectation I would be waiting for them to do so forever. I went from being a small town Michigan girl to landing in California in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, where you plan every activity around the traffic and the crowds. I find myself aching for summer to be over, for tourist season to pass, and for my son to get back in school because with few friends, little money (we still own that frickin' house in Michigan, Lord help us!) and no desire to fight crowds or traffic, I don't have a clue what the hell to do with him most days. The weather is annoyingly the same from one day to the next; the sky pretty much goes from fog to sun and not much in between. How I miss the rain! What I wouldn't give for a good old fashioned Midwestern thunderstorm! With the rolling, changing sky, the cleansing showers and the lush gardens and green pastures.

But I digress. There are a few opportunities available in San Diego that I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of in Michigan. Not the least of which is the array of colleges to choose from within a very easy commute of our home. When I was young, I had dreams and every expectation that those dreams would magically one day come true. I was a singer who was encouraged to sing and a writer who was encouraged to write. (Too bad I was never a good student who was encouraged to study!) But then my parents divorced when I was in high school and suddenly I didn't believe in anything at all. Life became all about them and their drama, and less about me and my brother. We bounced from parent to parent, living out of suitcases and never again had a safe place where we felt at home. Until we were able to build our own homes. We both are avid nesters, and real homebodies. And when I became a mom at the tender age of twenty, thoughts of college grew even less realistic.

With our oldest daughter having recently graduated from a pricey out-of-state college and planning a wedding, and our middle daughter working fervently on her own college career, full time college isn't an option for me right now. But! The University of California San Diego Extension has a writing curriculum that I can hack away at as time, money and the limitations in my own mind allow. I will be enrolling next Monday, first thing, after I drop my son off for his first day of third grade! And that's a promise to myself that I intend to keep.