My 500 Words Challenge: Day 1

I’ve always wanted to be a writer.

Since I was a little girl, knees tucked beneath me, snuggled in a chair with a book to my face, I loved a good story. Not only did I love reading and getting to experience the other worlds and lives of the characters, I loved thinking about the person who came up with each word and created this book that I could smell, feel and make my way through.   

My Dad used to read to me every night and as I got older he took me to meet some of the authors whose books had awakened this love in me for story. I’d stand in line and watch them as they smiled and signed their name on the title page of their creation.

I wondered how it would feel to know that someone got off their couch to come tell you what your words meant to them. To get you to sign your name, so they could look at it and think, I met that person. I can’t count the number of notebooks that had different renditions of my “author” signature practiced in them after those visits to a book signing event. Some day I was going to be “that person” who people wanted to talk to.

I pray that someday is still coming. This morning someday felt really far away. I realized I hadn’t written a blog post since 2016. An entire year and I never shared any of my words with the world. I was heartbroken to think that this written love relationship that I have with words was neglected.  

And if I’m honest, it’s not the words that feel the brunt of that neglect, it is me. I have failed to connect with one of the great loves of my life. I could tell myself why that is but everyone is busy. Every person is afraid to do something that says to the world, “Hi there, hey, here’s part of my heart and my dreams, do you like it?”

And an even harder realization was that when i was younger, I wrote for me, not for anyone else. I wrote because it was fun and took my breath away and gave my tummy this tingly excited feeling to see my characters all of a sudden come to life and start living before my eyes. Doing things through my fingertips that I didn’t even know they would do until I put a period at the end of the sentence.

I miss that. I miss me doing that.

But I can change that. Just like I can write new things into my life this New Year, like tell my journal about my plans to exercise, eat more carrots, have more fun, etc. I can choose to get my “butt in chair” as Jeff Goins says and write my way back into the moments where I touch people with my part of the wonder of story.

My childlike excitement, imagination, and awe that launched me into the chair and into other worlds when I was little is still hidden somewhere down deep. So for the next 30 days I am accepting a challenge from Jeff to write 500 words every day and hopefully find that little girl again who couldn’t be kept from her books and her stories no matter what.

So, here I go. For me. For you. For this written love that won’t go away…because I think it still has something to say.