Words, and Where I Found Them - #32

Writing has been with me since I can remember (yep, I'm one of those people). But I lost my dream somewhere along the way.

One summer, I spent a great deal of my days with my aunt while my parents worked. She wasn't the most attentive babysitter, but it wasn't too worrisome as I was about 7 and fully capable of punching a straw in a Capri Sun and smearing peanut butter and jelly on bread if my belly started talking to me. Anyhow, my aunt would give me coloring books to occupy my curiosity from All Things That Are Off Limits. The themed coloring books were boring.
So, I cut out pictures and lined them up to create scenes. Then I'd write a story along the tops and bottoms of the pages, and color the illustrations. Two staples on the left side, and Voila! I was published.
I sold my mini-books lemonade-stand style.
Well, I sold at least three.

The rest of my writing journey snaked in and out of this fashion - writing stories to occupy life's lulls - throughout middle school and high school, only I wasn't so public about selling my ideas. Or showing anyone, really.
Writing and I had a rough go after high school, especially whenever Responsibility and Wise Career Choices wanted an argument in my future.

Then I decided to attend college in 2004 (five years after I graduated high school). As an adult student with two young children. This is when I rediscovered my writing dream that I had pushed far, far down inside and filed away under "illogical".

Ordinary, paper-work heavy orientation was held in the Hollins Room:

@Samantha Sessoms

If I'd known what I was about to experience, I probably never would have walked through the door. Too insecure. Too suspicious. See, I had developed a built in BS detector, if you will, a standard to live by: if anyone said you could fulfill your dreams, no matter what they were, and make a living at it, I ran the other way. 

It had to be too good to be true. It had to be a sales pitch.

I took a seat in the front row and my whole world changed course:

@Samantha Sessoms

Women, much like myself, spoke and shared their stories of being beat down by 9-5 mundane work and were looking to do something for themselves. To find their dreams. I listened to these women tell stories of their first semester on campus. The supportive faculty. The networking opportunities. The daydreams of a new future from merely walking around the knowledge-rich campus. 

Desire to explore all the creative outlets I suppressed growing up began crawling up from those dark, dusty places inside me. I wanted to be free to feel that way again. I wanted to love writing again.

I spent the reception chatting with those women, looking through these windows into my own future:

@Samantha Sessoms

Somewhere between that room and that year's vacation, here:

@Samantha Sessoms
(The beach is, after all, my most treasured place)

I rediscovered my love of words. My love of imagining characters and stories. The need to write them down, again.

We all have a moment when we decide what to do with our lives.
I came about this moment in my journey like a snake stretching out on blistering asphalt under the bright summer sun - persistent, though a little unsure, but too damn content to care about getting my head run over because the pleasure far outweighs the risk.
And I've never felt more at home with myself; or looked back.

Word Count: 429

Where did you find your words, friends?