picking up my pen again

I have left everything I think important behind me, except writing. I left a secure job to start a business I could not care less for. I left dreams. I left ideals. I left myself, though I suspect the me I left behind was only an illusion.

I have never been more afraid in my life.

Or more alive.

What if I discover after having given up on all that is familiar that I don't really like to write either? What, more frighteningly, if I discover that though I love to write, I am simply no good at it?

I hear stories all the time of people who have dreams only to discover that they don't have the aptitude or talent to carry their dreams forward. For example, I can't really sing, even though my daddy convinced me in my formative years that I had the most beautiful voice of the ages.

But I keep returning to these blank pages. It is the only place where I really feel as though I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Oh dear God, let me remember and be comforted by these words!

Because I see no road here, no apparent path.

And I have responsibilities ... to myself, to my husband, to my children.

"Just write", says my husband Bill, a man of few words who ponders the deepest thoughts I've ever encountered.

It really is that simple.

And so I am picking up my pen again, remembering the words of Louisa May Alcott:

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and follow where they lead."