My New Love

So, I never understood what people like Oprah were talking about when they would say things like, “Find what you love to do and do it.”   What did that mean? Where was I going to find it? I am in my thirties for crying out loud. Don’t I know everything by now? I love my job but let’s face it, if I won a significant lottery I am not sure I would continue to do it, full time anyway. But somehow, when I wasn’t expecting it, what I really and truly love to do crept up on me and, like good reality t.v., I can’t get enough.

I have always liked to write.  I still have much of my original poetry from seventh grade.  I have never minded writing speeches and there is a notebook beside my bed that has various entries about random subjects that spans years.  My love of writing has always been there, I just wasn’t paying attention.

Now I spend whatever free time I can muster, writing about things that I am not sure really matter that much but that make me content in a way I have never been before.  Writing allows me to be the complete version of myself. A new, improved version possibly.

I love reading about other writers and the process of writing. The Paris Wife is one of my all-time favourite books. It is a piece of historical fiction that tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley.  Now, I’ve never actually read any of Hemingway’s work, but I loved reading about him and his love of writing. 

In discovering this new passion of mine, I have had the full support of my husband and that has made all the difference.  I sneak away to coffee shops when I can and only pretend to pay attention to the movies we are watching together when really, I am working away at my next piece.  I am not sure that I would have been as supportive to him as he has been to me.  When someone discovers a new side of themselves I think it can be a little threatening.  It not only requires time but it also that you allow them to grow when sometimes it is easier when the people we love just stay the same.

Allowing myself to embrace this new passion of mine has been a vulnerable time for me.  Not only have I had the support of Eric but also of my friends and family who have acted like my cheerleaders along the way.  I have never really thought about how important it is to really and truly support people during transitional times in their lives.  I think I have always paid lip service but I don’t know that I supported the people closest to me in the way that I should have. In the way that people have shown me.

I am not sure where this journey is going take me, I only know that I am happy to be on it.  If you haven’t found what you truly love to do yet, keep looking, it is somewhere inside just waiting for you to pay attention.