For me to tell a short story would be a Christmas in Almost July miracle. I couldn't even give a book report in under 15 minutes (true story). You see, for me, every detail is important. It's all a series of thoughts, comments, opinions, etc., that each link to the other. All of these things create the whys and wherefores of the culminations of our lives....which is why I almost don't even know where to begin because it all seems pertinent!

Here goes....

I've made a new friend. I don't know her well yet, but I'm quite certain I already love her.

Yesterday, I was sitting on Lenda's couch picking up a book that she so kindly bought for me when she mentioned she had read my blog.

My blog. An online diary of sorts. A safe place that got tainted and was put away on a low shelf tucked out of sight. I'd tried to re-name her. Dress her up in different clothes. Tried to make her and to some degree myself into something we were not. I tell the kids: It's too hard to go against your own grain. It hurts too much. So I let her have her name back, and then I packed her away once more.

About a year or so ago, my lovely friend Nikki from across the pond, sent me a quick note and said she'd been checking in on my blog only to find nothing new posted. "I'm guessing maybe you don't need it as much as you once did."  Those words stuck. I chewed on them a bit. Was there truth in it? Yes....and no. I'm not certain I can even explain the yes. The no is much simpler. I used to be able to say I was a writer. Because I wrote. Now, not so much. Yet, I watch Emma peck away at the keyboard and print off pages and pages of original work and something in me sighs. Is it time? Is it that I am no longer 'tortured' in the ways of writers because I am happy in my life? John Lithgow in the movie Orange County said upon hearing his son tell him he wanted to be a writer: "WRITER? You're not gay! You're not oppressed!! What do you have to write about?!"

I miss it. I miss the words in my head being pushed onto the screen by the laboring cursor. So here I am. Months and months later. But I am here. Not the same QuirkyGirl but QuirkyGirl all the same.

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”
― Neil Gaiman