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I AM a Writer
It took me more than 50 years to accept this truth
I am a writer.
Have I earned this title?
I’m conflicted. But it’s time I try it on for size, immerse myself in it, struggle with it, and see where it leads. And yes, of course, there’s a “but,” but “the but” doesn’t negate the declarative statement. It just means no one knows I’m a writer BUT me, a few of my closest friends, and a scattering of Medium readers.
Why have I hidden my voice?
Great question! The answer is not simple… I’d need to write a novel to do it justice. But at 57 years old, what I can say unequivocally, is that for many, many years I did not know that the writer in me was such an immense part of the “me” I was always meant to become. Until four years ago I made all my decisions with my head, not my heart… just as my father would have it.
During my first year of college, if I had said to my father “I want to be a writer,” dad would’ve gone apoplectic. I can hear him barking “Are you out of your mind?” And I wouldn’t have been wise enough yet to have come back with “YES, thank God! I’m following my heart.” I majored in accounting — the farthest thing from becoming a writer that I can imagine — then or now — and spent the next 40-ish years trying to claw my way back to the middle of the…
