Writing Will Commence

I started day one of a two-day writer’s workshop today, entitled Discovering Our Muse.  What a treat!  I got to spend the entire day at UCLA, with 12 other devoted writers and a wonderful teacher to guide us through writing exercises designed to get the creative juices flowing.  If I had any doubts about the timing of starting a writing program, today confirmed that now is the time.  Today I felt like me and I felt connected to the DNA that apparently established this deep desire to write.  I am still not quite sure about my eventual writing genre, but the desire to write is so overpowering that I am sure this is my path.  Today I discovered that I am more fearful of not writing, than I am about making the commitment to write.  Here is my answer to the writing prompt:  “Sometimes I’m afraid of becoming someone…”

Sometimes I’m afraid of becoming someone who never really learns from her mistakes.  My life has been a series of roller coaster rides up and down a journey of life in L.A.  The highs consisting of fantastic travel experiences, meals out at various restaurants, homes filled with “things” I thought I had to have, and weekends chilling on the California Riviera and the lows directly below with everything magically disappearing as if it never was.

Usually when one repeatedly rides a roller coaster, or drives through a winding canyon, the curves and bumps become predictable and one builds up immunity to the queasy feeling, the butterflies in the stomach and the wretched nausea implied in the words, “I told you so,” or “here we go again.”  That hasn’t been the case for me because the temporary view from the top is so engaging that my blinders go up and I have a hard time anticipating the inevitable fall.

Lately, my fear of repeating patterns is becoming stronger than my desire to bask in that heavenly glow.  My mid-life is bringing certain things into focus, such as the rapid approach of qualifying for an AARP membership, senior discounts at the movies and those early bird specials.  In my foolish youth, I was immortal and invincible.  My life’s tools consisted of a giant eraser and a bottle of whiteout, that accompanied me on my travels down my life-path conveniently wiping out major blunders.  In my young adulthood, I became the expert role player; able to emulate those I aspired to be by simply accumulating the trappings of their seemingly perfect life.  That didn’t work.  Now, I have come to an understanding that who I really am, is who I am meant to be and that the only way to alleviate the fear of failure is to accept the possibility that my path might venture around a corner and I will have to muster up that blind faith that will allow me to take the necessary chances and make the changes needed to reach my goal.

Sometimes I’m afraid of becoming someone who never really learns from her mistakes, so with that in mind, I am developing a plan, a learning curve, to teach myself how to become a learner.  I am organizing a real-life class to teach myself how to move forward without taking two steps back each time.  I am reinventing, reflecting and rediscovering the important elements in my life and working out a way to invite myself to partake in these real moments and make them my future.