I Came to Live in Color: Reaching the Age of Audacity

I have spent so much of my life seeking to connect and be connected with others, that it rarely seemed worth the effort to connect to myself. I had so much invested in other relationships. And adulthood, with its usual joys, challenges, demands, losses and more, left little time to do much more than keep the trains running (or the house standing) as my husband and I raised our six children. My longing to be connected is rooted in the oh-so-human need to love and be loved. For some of us, it takes a lifetime to understand that this means loving ourselves, too. And for most of my life, such connection has come through the roles I have played, first as a daughter and sister, and later as a lover, wife, mother, and grandmother. But most of all, as a writer. From the moment I wrote my first sentence, I decided I was a writer. I have written ever since, moving from childhood limericks and lovelorn adolescence to a master’s degree in creative writing, and a career as a writer of essays, articles, and more. I have shelves full of journals that date from 1974, when I was 12. I write from habit and practice, and because it is how I connect with others. My work has been published in many outlets, and I always enjoy hearing from readers (even when the commenters are more trolls than thoughtful). But poetry is a hard way to connect with others, beyond the mostly academic world of contemporary writing, and the journals whose work I often just cannot understand. I’d write something and ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Aging Source Type: blogs