Writer?

I've been compiling a list of topics for blogging. As I was skimming the list and adding to it, I read a line - shit, I'm not. It wasn't written to stand alone, it actually came at the end of a sentence. However, when I read it, there it was screaming at me. I got to thinking. What am I and what am I not. On the surface this seems an easy question. I'm a mother, wife, daughter, friend, volunteer and employee, and much more. I wear many hats but those are just labels. Why do we feel the need to label ourselves? Why can't we just be. Perhaps this will be a topic for a future blog. I certainly have a lot to say on it.

Moving along, to what I'm not. I am not a writer but I want to be. I am not an overly attentive mother but I have a healthy balance. I am not domestic but I cook and clean on occasion. 

I have always loved writing. I used to write short stories and poems. I was once published. It was a small book that was compiled from items submitted through the local schools in my home town. Not everyone was chosen and I felt incredibly honored. I may have only been around 13 but I still remember it as a highlight of my young life. I've always wanted to be recognized as a writer but have never taken the risk, except that once. It was a poem about the loss of my grandmother. It walked the reader through our relationship, how she didn't acknowledge me and how I didn't realize how much I loved her or what I meant to her until she died. The way it was written was as if I could be talking about anyone. Many related to it because they could put it into the context of a failed relationship with a significant other. It was sad and an outpouring straight from my heart. I remember the morning I wrote it. It was shortly after she passed away. I awoke with it running through my body with the need to be released. With tears streaming down my face I let my fingers talk. It took about 15 minutes to write and it has always been one of my favorites.

I remember others coming up to me and telling me how much they loved it. How it seemed to have been written just for them. That I put their thoughts into words. How it made them cry. I loved the feeling this gave me. Doesn't every writer hope to give their reader that connection?

Maybe I am a writer after all. Maybe I just haven't nestled into that hat yet.

Someday I will be published again.