I am a writer.

I write.

What do I write?

I write blog posts.

I am a journal writer.

I even occasionally write in a new medium called Instagram Stories.

Sometimes I write long Facebook posts.

When I went to school to earn an English degree, I was taught nothing about writing blog posts, Instagram Stories, and Facebook posts because social media was not even a thing we would have ever imagine.

When I was developing my idea of what it means to be a writer, I always thought of myself as being a person sitting at my desk, wearing a long-sleeved writing smock, pen in hand, and reams of paper at my side writing the great American novel.  (It was the early 60’s!)

That is a romanticized view of what I thought  it would look like to be a writer.

As a teen, I had another vision that I often carried in my head of what my writing life would look like.

For a short time in high school, I dated a writer.  

He wrote me love poems that always seemed to make me feel he was being overly sentimental and tad too much dramatically romantic for my taste, but it was lovely to have someone writing me love poems.  

Since, I had this rather maudlin poet in my life, I thought marrying a writer would be a great plan.  I wasn’t interested in marrying this poet, but I thought perhaps I could find another poet with a little less drama in his writing whom I could marry. 

This less overly emotional poet that I hoped to find and I would live in a cabin in the woods next to a stream where we would write when we weren’t out picking wild flowers, hiking in the mountains, and sitting next to pristine bodies of water eating delicious food and sipping wine while we discussed philosophy, religion, and books.

Then life became real.

 I married.

We had to pay the bills.

 And we had a bunch of kids in a very short period of time.

Actually, my first husband did write, quite well, and we began our early days of marriage writing each other long letters because he was shipped off to train for the military just days after we married.  It was the Viet Nam Era.

This letter writing practice continued throughout our marriage because he often worked late evening shifts and he went to school full-time and letters became how we communicated with each other.  I wrote these letters after the children were in bed and while he was working or away on short military assignments.   He wrote me letters when he had time at work or between classes when he was working or teaching.

 We were both readers, and we loved to discuss what we were reading with each other. In many ways, we were intellectually matched, but emotionally we were not matched at all.

During those days of diapers and dinners,

and cooking and cleaning,

and birthing and bringing up babies,

and canning and creating clothing for the children to wear,

and PTA meetings, and church duties,

I wrote stories in my head,

and long letters to my mate and to my parents,

and occasionally I even wrote a journal entry. 

Those years also gave me many stories to tell: 

Stories of broken dreams and broken promises,

Stories of a major pivot where I chose to walk down a new path,

stories of change, and challenge,

stories of learning to navigate life as a single parent with no job, no education, and no money.

I have so many stories of new beginnings,

and of hardship,

and of hope.

Thankfully, there has always been hope as I lived out my stories.

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And so today, all these years later, after a lifetime of dreaming writing dreams,  the question was asked of me,

“What are your writing dreams?”

My dream is to fully step into that identity of being a writer that I have carried around with me for so many years.

My dream is to get that book written about the stories of my life.

**********

Time is short.

I have lived more days than I have left to live.

What am I doing to make my writing dreams a reality?

• I am slowing beginning to create the outline of the book I’ve always wanted to write.

• I have a blog that hosts some of my writing.

• I have a handful of faithful readers.

Now, I have a few questions for you, my dear readers.

1. If my writing resonates with you, please let me know why and how?

2. Will you share your email address with me so we can keep in touch?

3. Will you please share my writing with those whom you think would like to read what I write because you think my writing might resonate with them as well?

When I write, I have you my reader in mind.

Please feel free to connect with me and tell me your stories that resonate with mine.  

You can leave a comment on my blog, or sign-up for my email list, or you can contact me at: info@sallywessely.com