“The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

~Mark Twain

I sit here today thinking about new Beginnings and last night I started off my new beginning waking from a nap that started on New Year’s Eve  and ended at 12:02 a.m. New Year’s Day; thinking; Wow have I become boring! That I had to laugh at. I then stayed up for an hour and a half and went to sleep again. I realized this morning after waking for the second time, that it’s not all in the beginning it’s in the Finish. A few days ago I woke up in the morning at about 8:00 a.m. and the first thing I said out loud, only to myself; as if it was a revelation, “This year is My Year to Publish MY BOOK!” I can no longer see the benefit of keeping it solely to myself anymore. I am over my insecurities about my writing and style, whether I am Good enough, and I am ready to get this thing done and off my desk.  So I will talk to as many people as I must to figure out who can help me completely edit the damn thing and then even though it is against what I believe, I will create eBooks and hopefully publish hard backs. In May, I will apply for a Fellowship and try to get funding for this project or a new one. I have another book in me or two or more, the possibilities are endless.

I realized a long time ago that I have to do things that make me happy. Not things that are just secure and tidy and keep order in my life but things that make me grow and flourish. Deep down I am a writer, and I am a River moving toward the Ocean. My goal is to write and speak and the beginning is set in place. I just have to keep on track. Life is far too short to do things that don’t make you happy and content with who you are or who you are becoming. I am becoming anew, I am reinventing myself again, and this time I hope to get some travel out of it and speaking engagements and help others. I am off on a new adventure, well I had already started but it was a slow start as I tend to do and get cozy with the idea and then cuddle up with it. That’s when I know it’s time to let go of it for others to see, when I trust it and me enough to say good-bye. Odd how that sounds to me but it so very true. I am slow to gain momentum and then I get to a tipping point and there is nowhere else to go, it must spring forward towards the finish line.

I feel a sense of accomplishment and I know I am done even though there is work to do. I know I am done with this part of the journey. It needs to take on a life of its own. This year I was told I should look into being a Board Member of a very reputable association. The Brain Injury Association and that was so very tempting because I could work at everything I believe in and help others in a bigger and broader way, at a legislative level possibly. After applying for it and going to a Board meeting that I was invited to, I decided that the work I was doing was just as important to me and realized I was just doing what I tend to do a lot and that is get involved in too many other things that take my focus off of the project that I have the most passion about. Not that helping others isn’t my passion it certainly is. It’s just that I want to Finish what I began and what I have worked so hard for. I don’t know that I would have been accepted by the Board and Voted in because I turned it down before they got a chance to vote for me. There is a place and time for everything and one day I will have time for it as I knew it would take my time away from this project.

My Finish is going to be like this old Desk I sit at. It stands boldly in my office always having more meaning when I am sitting at it, documenting the experiences that I have had, in words. It was originally a Mission Desk and someone not understanding its value cut off its legs and carved its surface to a ruddy mess. I bought it and was tickled with my find but believed from a distance that I was looking at a coffee table and that’s what I was looking for. I too didn’t originally understand what it would mean to me and I promised to give to my sister before I had a place for it in my home. Then suddenly I decided to have legs built, sand it, stain it and make it beautiful, and so it was Finished! My sister was not that happy because I was now going back on my word but she was ok with it later. It was brand new again and its old Beginnings renewed. It found new purpose as I have and it has been my trusty writing station for years. I will never forget the beginning I found it in but that’s not the beauty of it, it’s true self is doing what it was meant to do. Just as I plan to do what I was meant to do.