i'm on fire

sometimes when i start a project, i'm more excited about it than others. sometimes inspiration comes later. sometimes i just finish it through dogged determination. right now, i'm truly inspired to work on writing. i'm on fire. i'm motivated. i'm driven. i'm consumed.

i started into this blog business to get some writing done and to write some things from my childhood that i want to pass on to my children. the more i think about the things i want to write, the more things i think to write about. it's like a never-ending vicious circle. chasing my tail around and around and around.

i've started a list of topics to write about and carry it in my calendar. i have the things that i want to tell my kids how i feel now or how i felt then or just some of the crazy adventures that i've had. sometimes it's the little things that we think will never matter that make the best adventure.

last night when i was talking to scott about some things, i told him that i wasn't too excited to go to an upcoming concert event w/ summer because i'm not crazy over the performer. he asked why i was going if i didn't like the singer, and i said, "because your sister and i are going on an adventure." he laughed as he readily agreed, stating that anytime we did anything it was an adventure.

i think that totally expresses our view on life -- it's an adventure. there are many parts of this adventure for me that my children don't know. some things they will love, some things they will hate, and some things they will find amazing. some things i don't care if they know now, but other things i would rather them not know now. some things they would understand and other things they wouldn't. some things they would be proud of and some things they wouldn't be proud of. but all of these things, as a part of my life, provide their family history.

for years, i've put off writing these things. i know that my family just cringes and lives in fear when they think i'm writing, especially if it is about them. my mother has always been someone who nosed through my stuff and searched through my personal papers. that's why i learned to not keep anything written down when i was little -- because i would have to answer for it. as an adult, i haven't written because my mother finds it so upsetting to know that there are things that i did that she didn't know about and/or didn't approve of. hello? welcome to life! i was a kid, and my job was to push the rules and tests the limits. it didn't mean i didn't have good parents or that i wasn't a good kid. after all, inquiring minds want to know . . .

because of some things that have happened w/ writing in my adult life, mainly being published and seeing how upset my mother was, i have not written or posted anything that would upset my mother. at least, anything that she knows about! that limitation has often totally halted my writing capability. my freedom and flow is restricted. it's not that i care what other people think, but out of respect for my mother's feelings i have chosen to not cause her that stress. i prefer to have my mother present in my life, physically, rather than have the satisfaction of the writing being known to others. she finds it upsetting for other people to read about the things that i did or the choices that i made. like they might not think we were the perfect family after they read those things. and let me tell you -- until then, we had them all fooled.

i would like to someday publish a book, but we'll see how that goes in the future. i don't have the drive to do that as much as to get these memories down for my children's future reading pleasure. i would also be interested in teaching some classes on writing memories or creating memoirs. i think in the near future, there will be a big demand for just this type of class. but to teach someone else, i have to be good on my own and feel secure in my ability -- so we'll see.

for now, i'm content to work on these things for my kids. well, content wouldn't be the right word here, because it's not a feeling of relaxation that i'm having now. it's pushing me, pulling me, keeping me awake, urging me forward, making me deal w/ sitatuions and emotions from childhood that i haven't dealt w/ or haven't faced for years, demanding my time and attention, compelling me to rethink my views on life and many issues, forcing me to analyze who i am and what i stand for. it's exhausting. it's rewarding. it's a heirloom that i'm preparing for my future generations. it's up to them to assign worth to it.