Being an adult ain't much fun

It was fun until I found out I had to take the dog out in the freezing cold--and rain, and heat--every morning and night for the rest of my life. It was fun until I found out putting clothes on kids every day is like threading a needle with playdoh. It was fun until I had to pay bills, and taxes, and tickets, and library fines.

This is why I write. Because writing is fun and it takes me out of the mundane existence I sometimes find myself in. I love my kids, I love my dog--and cat, I love my house and library and police man and everything else. But it does get pretty hectic sometimes. Kids know how to make a mom feel very unappreciated, so it's nice to be able to sit down and create something that was lingering in my mind my whole life anyway.

Last year was a tough one, and I noticed that when things started to become too much too handle, I began playing this game in my head. I was creating a dialogue with someone, filling up the space with a scene and then adding characters; people who made me think, made me laugh, caused me to want to respond. I was at a movie with my husband and I hated the plot, so I started to create my own plot and was having a great time. The movie ended but I wanted to sit there and keep creating. This probably makes me crazy, I don't know. But it told me something: I was supposed to write, and soon. When I started last spring, I couldn't stop. Three hundred pages later and I was still thinking hard about my characters and what I wanted them to do next. Then I thought about other characters and other books I wanted to write.

I watched a lot of TV in my childhood, but I also read tons of books. My mom worked at the local library and I had access to the whole place, spending many hours of my time reading away at anything I could find. Later, I would slip into her little office and type away on the old Smith Corona, never thinking much beyond the little world I wanted to create for just a moment. It was all passionate stuff: faeries, gardens, magical forests . . . I never dreamed that someday it would lead me to another place, or how much pride I would have in just being able to put a few words together.

So, although I get frustrated walking among the mundane and droll activities of adulthood, I have found a way to escape and survive. No longer a child with dreams, I have become a creator perhaps because I was allowed to be a part of the ultimate creation and it inspired me beyond just being satisfied. There is no such thing as satisfaction anymore. Only words that need to be written.