Here Before

Usually when I am at some sort of crossroads, when I am struggling or hurting, the words are everywhere. I can write and write, no matter how tired or busy or how little time I have. But, that hasn’t been the case for the last four months. It has been almost physically painful to write, and I haven't been able to find my way out of whatever writer's block or obstacle I am up against. I have worried that I am too far gone this time. But really, I can’t be any more far gone than I have been before, can I? There are too many good things in my life now that I never thought I would have. Too many right things. Too many things that should make everything easier.

This time of year always sneaks up on me. Even though fall is my favorite season, this time of year – heading into the holidays, has always been hard. Even though I have a husband who loves Christmas with such passion that he reverts back to a six year old’s excitement over every ornament, decoration and Christmas movie on television, it can’t erase over 30 years of this being a really horrible time of year for me. I honestly love this time now, as we have our own traditions, and I don’t have to make excuses to avoid going home (and feel guilty for it) or feel like the most single person in the world (as the holidays can really make you feel). But I think there is something to the fact that my body, soul, and spirit learned to start preparing for hard times around September, and somehow I haven’t “unlearned” that yet. I get more emotional over everything, and think too much about everything, and in general, feel a little more of the weight of the world on me.

It started in September, when everything I read and heard on the news and from my friends just started weighing on me. Just the unfairness of life. Just hard stories and hard times and sadness that seemed to be outnumbering the goodness and kindness in the world. I kept telling myself I was just seeing things that way, and I was honestly getting scared for myself. We have been under so much financial stress for such a long time it seems. That will wear on a person. That, and family stress and every day stress, and just life has seemed, well, so heavy. I worried that, like addiction and other life-long battles people have to fight even once they are recovered, my depression was always going to be something that I had to keenly be aware of, sitting in the corner beckoning for me when I feel this way. At times, it felt as if I was fighting not to be taken in. I think we all have low moments, and I know I have had enough on me to justify feeling overwhelmed.

A few key moments stopped me in my tracks. The first was on the drive into work a month or so ago. I was already emotional that morning, and traffic was backed up on my regular route, and I had to take some back roads as I neared my office. I got a little turned around, as I always do with my lack of direction, and as I pulled up to a stop sign, trying to figure out which way to turn, a homeless man sat on a tiny patch of pavement between me and the oncoming lane of traffic. He held a small cardboard sign, with messy letters in black magic marker that read: Dreaming of Tacos and a Clean Pair of Socks. He was looking off in the distance and the pain on his face and that sign…well, I lost it. I was sobbing in my car, soon serenaded by multiple car horns pleading with me to move on. It just broke my heart that someone wanted such simple things and didn’t have them. The next morning, I tucked a pair of my husband’s socks into my purse, and went the same route to the office, but the man was no longer there. I cried again. I see so many homeless people here. Every day. And my heart is torn every time, and especially when I see elderly people or when I know someone is mentally ill and lost in a world that has discarded them. But this man’s simple sign has stayed with me. I have tried to remember that and be so thankful for all that I have. I have punished myself for feeling down when I am NOT by the side of the road begging, and I will sleep in a warm bed and have food tonight.

The other key moment came just a week ago. I was at work, and got a call on my cell phone from a sales person, trying to sell a conference sponsorship. She was trying to reach me, but in connection with the company I last worked for. When I explained that I no longer worked there, she responded, “Oh, Kim, I hope you are doing something  you love to do, something you’ve always dreamed of doing.” I sat silent. She and I had worked together briefly at my last company, and she let me know she had enjoyed working with me so much, and was glad to see I had moved on (my last working environment was not a very positive place to work). And while my new job is much better, much more geared to my work strengths, and while I make a good salary, what she said made my stomach drop. It was such hard timing when I have been struggling to write a single sentence for months and at times have given up on my dream of ever publishing a book. I want so badly to finish my novel and just try to get it published, and to just really feel that first and foremost, I am a writer. I know that can’t happen all at once, but I have always felt I was working my way there. Lately, I have felt like it just isn’t going to happen, like I am losing something, a part of me, a key core of who I am. I know I am so lucky to have a job in a time when people don’t. I know we are lucky to be paying our bills when others can’t. It is just so frustrating to be working so hard and turning over what feels like every cent to just cover our asses—barely—and it’s not even doing what I love- what I really want to do. But, that’s life. I know it. This is no surprise. It is just harder right now for some reason.

I feel time ticking by right now, it feels like the clock is speeding up. I had to check my age on a form recently, and I have a birthday coming up in a few short weeks. I will be 44. FORTY FOUR. How in the hell did that happen? And how did I LET that happen, without going after some of these dreams sooner? How did I let depression rob me of so many years? I know I didn’t “let” that happen, and that second question kind of answers the first, but it hurts my heart all the same. I know I still have time. I am constantly telling people that it is never too late. And it isn’t. It just feels that way right now. I just want to make up for lost time, and go grab everything I want to do, and do anything and everything that makes me feel better, and worthy, and hopeful about the world, and most of all, myself.

One thing that helps, so much, is this. 

This is the end of my day every day. My dog Bear. This face in the window. There are no questions or worries here from this sweet boy, just love. It amazes both me and my husband just how much love you can feel for a dog and how loved you feel in return. On my way home from work, when I honestly have cried a few tears for reasons I can’t explain, when I need to feel needed and worth more, and need to know that I am making my mark and a difference in the world somehow, I pull into my driveway, and Bear somehow knew five minutes before that I was turning on our street, even though I never arrive home at the same exact time. He looks out the window and waits. He sees me walking up to the door and explodes into a happy dance and pulls to get to me so much that my husband cannot hold him back until I have put my bags and purse on the kitchen table to turn to him. There is such joy in me just being there, just arriving, after only hours away. It seems small, and maybe even silly to those of you who aren’t dog lovers, but I can tell you that there are days when that moment is everything. 

It's a small sign that in a world of weight and sadness and lost and forgotten dreams, that there is boundless love waiting for me, just behind my front door, and somehow, I am doing something right.

 The beautiful painting featured in this post is called "The Fisherman's Wife" by Scott McLachlan. More of his work can be viewed here.

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The First Chapter of 2012

Since 2009, I have had the tradition of only making one New Year’s resolution, and that has worked well for me. Trying to achieve a long list of goals is overwhelming—and if I start making a list, it usually ends up very, very long. Especially when thinking about things I want to improve about myself. That list could go on for days.

This year, I have landed on one finally. This is going to be the year when I put my writing career first and make it happen. I am 42, and I have wanted this since I was 6 years old. I would say it is about time I got busy making it happen.

I am fortunate to have a nice following on this little blog of mine, and dedicated readers that send me such sweet emails of support all the time. In that sense, I feel like I am already a success in some ways. But I want what I have always wanted…to finish my novel, to submit to magazines, to really actively push myself to a point where I feel that I am doing all I can, and that every day is a small step towards that goal.

There are many runner-up goals for this list—I want to be healthier—to eat and to exercise regularly—but you know what? That’s something I should be doing no matter what. Another goal is to try and not worry so much—but that is also something that shouldn’t be a stand-alone goal—it should be how I am living my life. 

I am in such a good place to finally make my writing dreams come true. I have a husband that would move heaven and earth to help me make this happen. I have a job where I work from home and have the flexibility to shift my schedule if I am in a writing mood. I am in a place that inspires me, and a time of my life where I have enough life experience to draw from and enough of my own stories to tell or to turn into fiction. It’s time.

I have written in the past about a therapist asking me what my biggest dream was. When I told her I wanted to be a published author—she looked at me as if it was so attainable, that it could be done tomorrow. She talked about people that have unrealistic dreams, and how she knew (after reading some of my work) that mine was so doable. 

She paused a long time and looked at me and said—What are you waiting for? 

I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t now. There are excuses—life, being busy, money worries, migraines, insomnia…a million excuses. But no real reason.

So, 2012, here I come. This is the year I will finish my novel and submit my work to every outlet I can. This will be the year I look back and say finally…what took me so long?

Happy New Year to all my wonderful readers and friends…I hope 2012 is full of love, hope, peace and happiness for everyone!

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Found

On Monday, some simple, ordinary things happened. I dragged myself out of bed for an early work meeting. The skies were gray and the rain drizzled. I called a friend from my car while waiting in traffic. And sometime during the morning, a delivery service put thousands copies of a magazine in stands, offices, and on shelves throughout my city and other cities. Another delivery person brought several hundred copies of this magazine to the office where I work.

Then, something extraordinary happened. I took an issue from the stack brought to our office and flipped hurriedly through the pages to find…my essay. In print. In an actual magazine—one that I love and have loved for years. A magazine founded and edited by someone whose writing I love and admire. My essay, The Suitcase, was published.

For the last ten years, I have followed a ritual: on December 31st, before midnight, I always make a list of my New Year’s resolutions. In the first years, the list was long and more than a little daunting. I crammed all my hopes and dreams on a slip of lined paper, each aspiration numbered according to priority. As I look back, there was no way I could accomplish all those things in five years, much less one.

So, as I got a little older and wiser, I pared the list down to 3 or maybe 5 things, more realistic, maybe less daring things. I probably saw the reality a little clearer, and sadly even began to want less—to wish for less.

But every year, without fail, the number one resolution has been: Get published. Somewhere, anywhere.

And then last year, on the eve of putting a painful year behind me, I changed the channels on my television in time to see part of a segment on a local news station about New Year’s resolutions. The advice was this: only have one resolution each year. Otherwise you get lost in the list, and give up on too many goals swimming in your vision, and you accomplish few, if any.

So, the idea was to choose one-the one. The most important thing. And it was the same number one choice from all the other years. Get published. Somewhere, anywhere.

And it has happened.

I don’t completely buy into the fact that narrowing my list down made this happen. But what choosing that one thing did was make me realize of all things, all my hopes and dreams, this was the most important one.

It has been the most important one from a day in third grade when I handed my teacher a story I had written as part of an assignment. She stood next to my desk reading it as she had read all the others. I had watched her walking from desk to desk, breezing through story after story, making corrections or a final red check mark on all the other papers. She grabbed mine with the same movement and then, I saw her face change. I saw her slow down, her eyes following the words. She looked at me over the top of the page, made a check mark with her red pen, and as she handed the paper back to me, told me to come see her when we were done.

She told me my story was good--very good. I had a talent, she said. And from that moment on, she and the other two teachers that worked in my room encouraged me at every turn. They gave me special assignments just to keep me writing.

That moment was when I realized that even at such a young age, this thing I loved to do was more than just the way I passed time or finished a classroom assignment. This was something special, and it made me feel… found…when I felt lost most of the time.

For any writer, getting published for the first time is always a landmark, a celebration. Seeing my essay, my words, my name in print, was definitely reason to celebrate. But it was also a moment of rekindling hope for a dream that I have held close to my heart since that day in third grade. And after years of successes and wrong turns, happiness and sorrow, and ultimately getting lost along the way…a little ink and newsprint has made me feel found all over again.

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