Starting Over

I finally gathered what was left of my self esteem, and my courage, packed only what was just mine, grabbed the hands of my children, and left my life behind. My life at that time mainly consisted of my husband, and what he thought, what he wanted. I used to have goals, dreams of the person I wanted to be…when I finally had the time. Someday, after the kids were in school, after I did not have to work nights, after the house was paid off, after he got that promotion… There were always more, after this, after that, there was always another if only…

One day it occurred to me that no matter how much time I did not have, I had enough to chase my dream. My dream was and is, to share my words with the world because someone somewhere might be helped by them somehow. So I started sending my works out to different places, and surprise! Some of them were even published!

My husbands response? Why haven’t you made any money then? He thought that my writing, and reading were wastes of time I could better spend cleaning the house or waiting for him to talk to me. For years I had hidden my writings, because he made feel ashamed, that writing my poetry or stories was not a valuable skill. I could never just stop writing though, I tried, but then I would find my self picking up a notebook at the grocery store, or jotting thoughts down on the backs of envelopes. Sometimes the need to put my thoughts or feelings on paper was stronger than my guilt at wasting time. And no matter where our family moved, I always managed to find room for my box of words. Notebooks, envelopes, receipts, all the things I ever used to write on, all crammed into a big cardboard box with “pages” written in black marker.

I woke one morning and knew that I wanted to live a different life. I did not want to hide or be ashamed of what was actually a gift. I may never be famous or wealthy because of my writing, but I will be happy, my kids will be proud of me, they will never be afraid to express themselves. They will be happy, and they will know that dreams are meant to be followed, goals are meant to be reached. So I moved out, I started over. And I am a better person for it. No one should ever have to sacrifice their gift to make someone else happy, the gift each person was given should be shared.