I guess I should write then...

So I've been contemplating taking a new plunge -- a dive off of the proverbial cliff -- and into a sea of rejection slips of my own making.  I know I will be swimming in them long before an acceptance ever comes back. I know that, in my gut, I'll probably lose hope several times along the way.  But what I pray I achieve through all of this diving, swimming, and possible drowning is to come up, at least once, with a publication.  Something that is mine -- my blood and sweat and anger and joy -- all on paper for someone else to read.   But what I realized after I decided I was ready for this vast sea of rejection -- this massive undertaking -- and what I realized after I had searched through a few sites of freelance work looking for places to submit... I should probably write something.

All the work I have is from college.  It is all mediocre at best and most of it still has my "college voice."  I was more rebellious then, more angry, more sexual, and by far more naive.  I tended to write about adolescence, growing up, struggles with morals and (did I mention?) sex.  But what I don't have -- not one single page -- is my voice.  This voice.  The one who has used far too many fragments and hyphens to put a solid thought together, and yet, that's how I feel like I speak.  What I am now.  More of a fragment.

I'm made up of lots and lots of fragments.  I'm okay at a lot of things, decent at some, even darn good at a rare few, but I'm not any one thing.  This blog will undoubtedly roam all over the map in the jagged line of a person without a compass.  From canning, to cooking, to crocheting stuffed toys (something I love to think about and rarely have time to do), and hopefully it will always come back to writing.  Maybe that's the only place on the map with a gas station.  Or a clean bathroom.

But here it is -- all shiny and new -- my primary goal.  Write.  This blog is my warm-up routine.  Maybe more, maybe less.  I'm sure on many days it will be all I can bear to do just to jot down my grocery list on a blank page here, or celebrate a recent couponing success that will get my family along a little longer with free toilet paper and mac n' cheese.  But hopefully, it will also help me find my new voice.  One the flows from my fingers like it used to. I can remember the sensation -- like water roaring over your skin with such a pace you can barely move.  Like it's all you can do to wiggle your fingers and rock to and fro.  I can get back there, if I try hard enough and work hard enough, and write every damn day like I used to before I had duties and children and laundry.  I can get back there if I forgo some sleep, and some free time, and a phone conversation here and there.

With a cough and sputter, my voice will come.  I can feel a trickle already.