I am sitting with my student, Elena, who is an old friend and the mother of several of my former students. We are writing our quick write, which is 12 minutes of pouring out on the page whatever is on our minds. In my case, this is a chance for me to purge my mind of all the thoughts that are clanging around inside, particularly since the last several months have been so event-filled.
What I realize is that I have been so busy, I haven’t had time to process any of the events that have occurred. These are all related to my children – graduations, passing the bar, a marriage and then a church wedding, the birth of a granddaughter, the moving away of one of my daughters to Texas, the 60 day trip of other daughter while she awaited bar results, and on and on and on. Where am I in all of that? Where do I fit in? I have fit in all and none of the above; all as the mother and none when it comes to my own personal accomplishments. Well, helping coordinate a wedding for over 100 people can be added to my personal accomplishments, I suppose. So, given all of that, how do I process all of those things and find myself somewhere in the mix?
I suppose there are just times in a mother’s life when much of her time gets redirected to her kids. I wasn’t expecting that time to be now since my children are all grown up at this point. So, lesson number one when it comes to kids – never underestimate your children’s needs after age 21.
Also, I suppose that any of these wonderful accomplishments of my children can add to the flowers in my “life bouquet.” I am proud of each of them for their hard work and accomplishments, so I can to enjoy the sweet smell of their success as I watch them proceed with their lives. This is a great thing.
Still, the question reminds, now that all the pomp and circumstance is over, where am I and what am I doing? At sixty-years-old and still not quite where I had hoped to be in terms of my writing…dear Lord…what does that mean in terms of my future? I sat down with one of my writing friends last week and set my writing goals for 2014. These include finishing the first draft of a novel that I have been working on, and also going back to an older novel that I have finished and looking at it with fresh eyes to do some editing so I can resubmit it to agents and/or decide if I want to self-publish it. Also, I want to go over my blog posts from this past year and see if there are a few I can rework just a bit and then submit to other publications. I did that last year and my work was accepted to around 10 other sites. So, that is always good. Plus, of course, there is my teaching and my submission process for my students to the Scholastic Artists and Writers contest. That needs to be done – and I have several fine pieces from my students – before January 5th, 2014.
So, I guess the point to all of this is that I will re-group and refocus my attention back to my own life just as my children are moving forward with their own. We will all continue to stretch and grow as time proceeds, and I am hopeful I can move to the next level with my writing – a level that brings me to a place where I am able to write daily and publish more extensively. I am grateful for all the success that has been occurring with my children. I can see that my earlier job as a highly focused parent is reaping great benefits. Now it’s just time to turn that same attention to my own aspirations so I can see where that time and energy might take me.
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