Monday, April 30, 2018

Frumpy to Fantastic


It was scary pushing that publish button yesterday. It is one thing to have all these thoughts and ideas in her head, but it is another to share them with the world, not that she is expecting others to gather here. She is the one who needs this space, a place to be accountable to what she wants to do. If someone stumbles upon this journal and it helps them in some small way, who is she to stand in the way.

Her forties have been, for the most part, fabulous. She finally found her calling - photography. She has gained bucket loads of confidence through the wielding of her camera. But as she is in the final days of her forties, she realizes she has gone from fabulous to frumpy. Rarely does she put makeup on, or even real pants. An early morning trip to the grocery store in yoga pants, bedhead hair, and a plain face is just fine, or is it?

She wants her fifties to be fresh and alive, full of wonder and excitement. She wants to change from frumpy to fantastic. So with fifty-one days to go until she is fifty, she is going to start putting on make-up every morning before she leaves the house, she will wear real pants whenever she goes out, yoga pants are still fine for around the house, she will act like she matters until she believes it, even if it takes the whole fifty-one days.




Sunday, April 29, 2018

The Voice


She didn't bring an extra notebook on this vacation, which is unusual for a vacation where she stays in the same place for the whole week. Maybe she didn't bring one because she didn't have faith that her writing voice would ever return, it has been gone for such a long time. But she should know by now, when she least expects it, is when the voice returns.

So instead of writing in a notebook, she is going to have to type directly to this page, and maybe that's okay. It seems to be how it has been in this last year: typing, editing, typing, editing, and reading and rereading for what seems a hundred times. Maybe this is her new process and she just needs to embrace it. Maybe though, she needs to let some of that perfectionism go, and just let the words flow. Maybe this is where she needs to find the truest, rawest, uncensored voice.

She knows she wants the voice so she can become a better writer, but she needs the voice to find and express emotion, she needs the voice to find herself.

She can't let the voice slip away again.




Unexpected Gift

Her husband gave her an unexpected gift this morning, and he didn't even know it. She was dressed in her jeans and t-shirt, grocery...