Why Am I Doing This?

My daughter posed the question when we were out to dinner Friday night. As a person still in her teens, she sees everything her parents do as either 1. stupid, thus embarrassing, 2. not stylish, thus embarrassing, 3. unnecessary, thus embarrassing. That’s not as a put down to her opinion. I believe I felt the same way about my parents when I was the same age.

My husband was amazingly supportive. “You should be proud you mother has other interests,” and indeed, I do have a lot of other interests. I believe I got the same response from my dear daughter when I decided to take a drawing class, when I took up the violin, and when I began to study Japanese. Let’s not forget when I began to golf, roller blade and snow ski.

The reason for writing (and my other pastimes)? I’m not dead yet.

Maybe I feel this way because I’m getting older. Life is too short, and I’m never going to get any wasted time back. It just doesn’t work that way. I intend to fill my days with the things I like to do, and let everything else fall into place.

I started a novel back in the early 1980s, when there were no computers, spellcheckers or portable storage. The book is still in my basement somewhere. I’ve toted it around for almost 30 years as a reminder of things left unfinished. For some reason, I only wrote 100 pages and I stopped, even though I had the entire plot worked out.

Creativity takes hard work and an eagle’s eye. It’s difficult at times to keep going. These days, I have an entire posse of cheerleaders nagging me on. 🙂 I’m glad for it.

So until I breathe my last breath, I will continue to do this.