One of the best things I have done lately is join a Facebook page called Women of Midlife. One of the writers I regularly follow is Carol Cassara and her daily blogposts.http://carolcassara.com/feeling-good-enough/
The reason I do is simple, I read her blog and think. I don't read and get mad....I don't read and feel guilty....I read then think.
Unfortunately some bloggers do want to make you mad or elicit some gratuitous emotion. Their blogs are the equivalent of train wrecks, hoping a lack of actual writing skills will be disguised by images and feelings that simply lure you in and then add nothing to your life. It's the "Housewives of....." You fill in the blank. There was a time no one admitted they read the Enquirer, and then they got it right on the John Edwards story and suddenly closet readers came out from a kind of witness protection program and said, "see the Enquirer has been getting a bad rap all these years! I knew it, they are actual reporters."
Right.....but then a whole new genre of "got'cha" appeared.
My son once told me, if you are good people will find you. Regardless of what you do excellence will come to the surface. Just be authentic and as my good friend Winston Churchhill once said, " I am easily satisfied by the very best."
Carol writes today about insecurity and I found myself in, around and through the entire blog. She represents thinking that wasn't in my universe or so I thought. After I read many of her blogs I realized we were talking about very similar things...with just different words. She is a reminder to incorporate more critical thinking into my little Studebaker of life. And if we don't agree...she doesn't care! Unlike some bloggers Carol doesn't withhold pen pal friendship simply because we don't agree on the same color of grey.
It has taken years to confess, and yes I am using the word confess, that I want to be a writer. The tapes of "who do you think you are wanting to write, everyone thinks they are a writer!" play loudly in my head. I need to read the words of fearless women, women who are routinely jumping off cliffs. Because I am jumping off cliffs, and sometimes I am being pushed off cliffs. I need people to test my ropes, catch me as I fall or just clean up my scratches and bruises after a fall.
I am no longer a status quo girl. I want to embrace the fact my life doesn't look normal to me or anyone else, but it is my life. Everyone's secret is we are dealing with the same things......different to be sure, but the same patterns.
And we have got to be fearless.
The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is fear. Gandhi
I am almost 60 years old for hell's sake, when do I think my life is going to start anyway?
