#5 Response

It really shouldn't be a hard question to answer: who am I? That is the sort of thing ones asks in high school and college, when everything is jumbled up and to feel lost just feels a little normal. But now? Still? And yet I am still not sure what really makes me… me. Slowly I find things out about myself that I didn't know (and some that I just didn't realize): I like working with soil and flowers, I am terrible at sticking to schedules and organization (though I wish I could), I love art, the mess in our house is primarily a product of my own laziness, I like bird watching and too much talking and interesting cooking. I see some of the roles I play and how they are a part of who I am: wife, mother, friend, companion, etc. Then I see things I wish I was; things that at this moment in my life I just can’t do. I can only be and do so much. Right now I am a baby maker, a one car family victim, a tired wife, a tired mama, a book reader (though not always a book finisher). Time will pass and those things will change. I will not always be pregnant and sick. I will not always have little ones here at home. Sometimes that gives me hope, though it breaks my heart too.

I truly feel that if I want to improve my writing, to find my own voice, and to be happy in where I am, I need to stop worrying about writing what I think other people want me to write. Instead to embrace the roles and places I am in my life RIGHT NOW. To let those things be part of my writing instead of pushing them away for one reason or another. Maybe then I wouldn't be at such a loss of what to write. Maybe then I would find the voice that is uniquely mine.