Writing Writing Writing

It's been exactly one week since my last post. Writing does not come so easily for me and I have to make more of an effort to do it everyday. Whether it's playing tennis or learning a new language, practice does make it better. And writing is no exception. I really admire great writers, the ability to string together ordinary words and make it come alive. To make you feel something, to stir emotions, to take you to a place you've never been. So now I'm starting to re-learn all the stuff I learned in junior high and high school about sentence structure and grammar. So many of us keep making the same writing mistakes because as adults no one corrects us. As I write this, there's probably numerous errors that would make an editor's pen run out ink. Well, maybe not yet. Anyway I want to share a paragraph written by William Zinsser of the American Scholar about writing a memoir since I'm attempting to take a crack at it. This piece inspired to tell my story even if it will take a long time, because I do have a story to tell. 
"It can also be an act of healing for you. If you make an honest transaction with your own humility and with the humanity of the people who crossed your life, no matter how much pain they caused then, readers will connect with your journey." Yes, there's that word journey again. Seems to resurface quite often. It must be a sign of good things to come!

Sources of Inspiration

There are many special people in life, and in time, each will reveal itself with a post of their very own. But for today I'm going to focus on my two special nieces, they know who they are but I'll give you a hint (O & V/C).  Over the years we have developed a bond that gets closer as we get older. And ironically the table has somewhat since they've reached adult, they are 21 and 18 respectively.  What I mean by the table has turned is that when they were younger I was the one giving the support and shoulder to lean on (or I tried to anyway), but now they are ones giving me the support and shoulder as I look to re-enter the job market after taking two years off to follow my dreams of becoming a hairstylist.  I'm in midlife career crisis.  What can I say. Back to the nieces. I am proud of them, especially in light of the adversities they face and continue to face. I know they are not the first ones to come from a broken home, but somehow when it's your own family, the heartache & sadness pulsates more strongly. But they have given me more strength then they realize and maybe its one of the reasons I chose not to have children of my own. I know that many women say being a mother changes you, and I'm here to say being an Aunt to these two special girls changed me and they continue to be a source of inspiration to what may become of me as I chart a new course in my ever changing roadmap to what I want to be when I growup.   

It's the Journey

Ever since I heard the phrase it's the journey and not the destination I knew instantly it was going to be a lifelong mantra for me. Call me a dreamer, but in life as I've learned so far, is learning to enjoy all the mundane things in life, because the fact of the matter is we spend most our existence in the daily routine (eating, sleeping, going to work) and if we are not actually doing those things we are thinking about  how to eat better, sleep more and work less. So you see, our lives are basically revolving around those three things.  Exciting moments are rare like new love, new job, new house, vacation, and maybe even getting an ipad!  The trick is learning to enjoy the daily stuff  like waiting in a grocery line (chat with the person behind you, comment on how fresh the tomoatos are today), sitting in traffic (turn the music up and sing like you are top ten american idol), waiting to use the ATM (smile at the prospect of getting good ol cash in your hands, holding for customer service (though truth be told, I have lost it in several instances with my DirecTV rep for billing errors that were not my fault).  Ok, I admit, not everyday is roses doing the routine stuff, but you can't fault a girl for trying to live for the journey.