What I want to be when I grow up

We've all met them, those people who know from birth what they are going to be when they grow up. They don't need time to find themselves. They don't flop majors in college. Hell, they go to college; and not because they have nothing better to do.

Then there are those people that just do what they are told. Their family or counselor tells them what they are good at and they just go along the chosen path with no complaints. They go to college, get a job in their appointed field, and put in 20 years and retire.

The first group end up being the overachievers of the world. Working 60-80 hour weeks and fighting retirement like it's death, and to them it may well be. The second group work their 40-hour weeks, take two weeks vacation a year, participate in 401k, and don't shit the small stuff . . . because they just don't care. They retire early and enjoy their life.

I'd be happy to count myself in either group, but I'm not. I'm a "when I grow up kid". I still have no clue and I'm 42. If there was a sign along the way, I missed it. And there wasn't anyone who cared enough in my youth to guide me. Mom told me to find a husband before I was out of high school or the good ones would be all gone. Got to love life in a small southern town, or having a psycho for a mother; I'm not sure which. Not a single teacher or councilor ever spoke to me about college or choosing a career.

I have felt a reoccurring "buzz" throughout my life, a draw to writing, to putting a story down on paper. I wrote a complete story by longhand when I was 15 and it was the most amazing experience of my then very-young life. My characters took on lives of their own and wouldn't always act or behave in ways I tried to make them. Yeah, I know, now who's the psycho?

I also wrote TONs of poetry back then as well. In fact, I used the pseudonym of Lynn Collins and read my own poem at a UIL competition. Then when something so horrible I thought my life was over happened, and I can't even remember what it was, I burned everything I had ever written. And forgot about writing.

I spent almost 13 years working in the publishing industry in different capacities; but mostly associated with the editorial staff. I know, a hoot hu? While working for a map making company in my late 20s, I actually got to write up small filler articles, help compose text for atlases, and come up with different hightlight-text for pullouts. It was fun and fulfilled a side of me I hadn't even thought of in years.

In my middle thirties I once again started writing. I typed a complete novel in about 4 months. I had it critiqued and made edits. I submitted it to competitions. I even started a follow up novel. And it was wonderful. I was fulfilled and felt like I was doing what I was suppose to be doing. But then life happened; computer crashed and files were lost, laid off my job, new baby.

While relatives have gone on to pursue an actual writing career, I have not. I have placated myself by posting to places like e.how where you get paid for writing artifices. Hey, I actually get to claim royalties in my tax return . . . there are a lot of writers that will never experience that. I write up instructions for my patterns that go all over the world . . . there are a lot of writers that will never experience that.

Then I started this blog to help cope with the loss of my sister and to have a place to throw-up stuff I needed to just get out of my body. Then it became more. Now, it's my passion at the end of the day. The determination to write, to enjoy putting word to paper -- or in my case, finger to keyboard.

I've said all my life that when I grow up, I want to be a writer. Maybe I haven't turned out to be the writer I expected to be, but you can't be much more grown and I do write.