I’m in love.  It’s funny, because I have known my object of affection for over 20 years and it was only recently that I realized how I felt about them  Then all of a sudden, one day, it clicked.  I couldn’t get enough!  I wanted more.  I NEEDED more!  I wanted to eat, sleep, drink, it all in.  This object of my affection is one I share with many of you readers…it is Writing! 
It’s like I just can’t get enough.  My thoughts constantly want to be writing things down, ideas for blogs, books, poems.So let me take you back to where it all started.  Where we first met. 
I remember one of my first diaries, which I still have, was my cabbage patch kids diary.  It’s filled with stories of my vacation to florida, stuck in a car with my two older sisters tormenting me and my mother probably singing just to add to the irritation.  It has the list of boys I had crushes on in 3rd grade.  The who likes who, ratings on how funny Keith was or how cute Nate was.  This was serious stuff!  It only progressed from there when my 4th grade teacher gave us all journals for Christmas one year, which I also still have.  Filled no doubt with series of more crushes, important elementary gossip and so on. 
Let’s skip ahead to high school…this is where my writing got a little more interesting.  This is when I had my first love (or as I now refer to him, ”my baby daddy”, but only because he hates to be called that!)  A quick back story, he was living in a group home at the time I met him so we often wrote letters before we actually met and while we were dating.  (Kind of similar to dating a man in prison, but much smaller scale)  So, I would spend my days in school classrooms, doodling hearts and filling them with our initials or writing love poems about him and dreaming of the moment I would get to spend time with him again.  After all, it was that first love, that innocence.  Ahhhh if only every love could feel like that.  So fresh, so new, so innocent.  Eventually the new love fades, people grow and change and life happens.  With writing, that’s ok.  Writing never gets old when you’re in love with it.  Change is what inspires writing.  Anger, hurt, tears, fears, love all inspire something new to write about  and fuel the fire inside of us to write more!
Over the years I continued to write, but usually it was for therapy.  If I had a breakup or a I was feeling some sort of emotion about a person or situation.  Never again would I write a love letter.  Not to anyone I knew anyways, but I have hope for the future.  That one soul mate, love of my life is somewhere, just around the corner.  The one man who will inspire me to write the best story or poem of my life. 
It is through writing I can find myself.  I can discover the why of my emotions.  I can have those “ah ha!” moments and really learn about myself.  I have always written for myself first. 
Never once in my years of writing did I ever think that people would want to read what I wrote.  Never once did the thought cross my mind that, hey, maybe someone else has been through that.  Maybe someone else may find that interesting.  Maybe your view could make someone think, could change an opinion.  Once I actually shared my writing and people started reading it and complimenting me all that kept going through my mind was Chris Farley in his skit, “Living in a Van down by the river”.  I kept hearing this voice say , “Sooo you wanna be a writer, huh?? Is that Bill Shakespeare over there??” (see a clip of the video here)  
Once i realized people actually enjoyed reading my work, I decided to start blogging.  Like, these people subscribe to my blog!  They look forward to my writing!  My best friend of over 30 years, (yes we were only like 5 when we met)  sent me texts like, “ummm I feel so embarrassed that I never knew you could write” to which I had to reply, “umm neither did I!” I think I really love writing because in writing there are no rules.  Yes, we can place rules, but when I write for myself I can get my thoughts out of my head so much smoother.  I can be me.  I have no pressures, no worries, no judgement.  Writing lets me be who I truly am.  Whether I decide to share all these parts of me on my blog is another story.  But, in my journal I can truly be me.  Writing never judges me.  Never talks back.  Never tells me I’m doing it wrong.  When I write I can release my inner ginger.  When I write I am my true me.
I have been wanting to blog so badly this week, feeling like i need to create this great post.  I had to stop and really think about why I write.  I had to take time and remember that I write for me FIRST.  For healing, releasing and therapy.  In fact  I decided to do a writing cleanse but I will blog about that another time.  It’s hard because I love connecting with people through my writing. It motivates and excites me!  But sometimes I just have to take time to embrace my inner writer not for the audience, just for me.

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