When I was a kid, I wrote and I wrote. I wrote new stories over the stories in my picture books. I wrote on the walls. I even wrote all over the back seat of my parents' old Ford Cougar and blamed it on my younger sister.
As a teenager in high school, I filled up the hard drive of our first family computer with poems about anything from alligators to the first piano performance my youthful heart connected with.
By the time I entered college, I knew writing was what I wanted to do. I enrolled as an English major in a university. During my graduation, one of the professors from the English department recited "Screech Owl" by Ted Kooser into the boom of the microphone. My classmates and I sat sweaty in the heat of the summer, under black caps.
"All night each reedy whinny
from a bird no bigger than a heart
flies out of a tall black pine
and, in a breath, is taken away
by the stars. Yet, with small hope
from the center of darkness
it calls out again and again."
I looked around and I wondered how many of us would get a job after graduation. It was 2009 and the U.S. was in the middle of what they were saying was the biggest recession since the 1930's.
A month later, I was offered a job as an administrative assistant in a nonprofit and my friends told me I was lucky. They couldn't find anything and ended up back in school, chasing after a Master's to keep their student loans at bay.
I saw raises and promotions. I joined the executive team at my company and flew on a plane for the first time for a business trip across the country. I saw successes and I saw failures. I saw 10 years pass by. I saw myself disappear.
From the center of darkness
I call out again and again
seeking the fearlessness I once had
as a child,
picture book and pen
in hand.
Following
