Thanks Mr. Laakso

I always wanted to be a writer.

In third grade I wrote a play called “Raining in Half the Sky.” I thought it was science fiction; but later learned that rain really can be falling on one house in the neighborhood and not the other – something about clouds, who knew?! My teacher at the time, Mr. Laakso, was generous enough, despite its lack-of-genius, to let me use free time to bring some of my classmates into the empty classroom next door to practice the play. We never got to perform it. Probably for the best (although I think we did perform one I wrote about dogs - strange.) But that didn’t stop me from writing and rehearsing the stories my young mind had waiting to burst forth for the world to share. Mr. Laakso only taught in our school that one year (too bad, he was my favorite teacher in elementary school); but when he came back for a visit a few years later he asked me if I was still writing stories, which of course I was.

In sixth grade we were supposed to write a page on where we saw ourselves in the future. I wrote that I’d be a journalist. Of course I spelled about half the words wrong – maybe that’s part of why I never made it as a writer. I held onto that dreamed-of career all through high school. My Mom saved that 6th grade paper I'd written, framed it and set it out at my high school graduation party. It didn’t, however, get set out at my college graduation, since that’s not what my degree ended up being. I’m not sure what happened that moved me away from that field, but I haven’t moved away from the desire to be a writer.

And although I haven’t taken a writing class since high school “technical writing” (which was kind of a joke to be quite honest, and I don’t even remember actually writing anything for it), I am actually pretty good at writing. I’ve received numerous compliments on my writing over the years: a Communications Director asked after I turned in my first-ever press release if I do this a lot (yea me); I’ve had multiple professors in both undergrad and grad school ask if they could keep a copy of my paper for future examples (way to go Kateri); I almost always Aced essay tests (kudos); and I was told to submit one of my papers to a theology school journal once (yippee); I even got asked by a professor my first year in grad school if it was actually my paper or if it was ‘borrowed’ (hurray…errr, wait…what?!) I was quite furious at that accusation; it may be the most offended I’d ever been up to that point. But I have since come to see it as a compliment (and subsequently that was the same professor who later told me to submit a work to the journal…hmmm). Yes, I can write, and write well.

The problem is I don’t want to write that kind of works. I don’t want to write scholarly papers. I want to write REAL life! I want to be the kind of writer who tells stories that make others fall in love with being a mother like I have; who writes poems that make others mourn for people they never knew; things that are worded in such a unique way that make people put my quotes on the bottom of their email signatures. Unfortunately, I’m not as good at that kind of writing.

Lately I have again been feeling the pull (or push) to write. I miss writing poems; I miss writing in my journal; I miss writing stories; I miss being able to tell Mr. Laakso that I’m still at it! I hear about those ‘professional bloggers’ and I think, ‘Why couldn’t that be me?’ I re-read Robert Fulghum’s “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” (my favorite and one of my most re-read books, filled with short stories and random messages, that if books can be, this one is my “idol”), and I think ‘Why couldn’t I publish something like that?’ I (once again) make the New Years Resolution to WRITE MORE, and I think ‘Why did I fail at that last year?’ I feel the urge to be a writer, and I think ‘Why aren’t you?’

There are many answers to that question. But what it comes down to is that regardless of the answers to why I’m not a professional, there isn’t a good answer to why I’m not writing at least for myself.

So I this year I am proclaiming to all the world (or all the three people who follow my blog), that I am going to be a writer! It’s proven fact that if you share your goals with others you are more likely to attain them. So there it is - it's out there - it's going to happen now. I’m not saying I will be published or even be good at being just a hobby writer, but I am going to write. I’m going to push myself to post more often, and a different kind of post, as a way to share whatever I’m writing, regardless – be it good, bad, compliment-worthy or never-going-to-be-performed caliber. I already have a notebook that I carry with me each day for me to write down random thoughts, possible titles, memories, etc. that I think could turn into stories, poems, or messages. I call it my “All-I-Need-to-Know-I-Learned-in-Kindergarten-notebook.” But for me, it’s more what I learned in third grade – that I like writing; that although I’m not stellar at it, it’s a part of me; that when I run into Mr. Laakso again, I want to be able to tell him “yes!” Yes, of course I’m still writing stories.

Here’s to making my nine-year-old dreams come true!