Reclaiming My Voice, with kids

Let’s talk about trying to write when you have kids and a husband. And there’s dinner…

I get an idea, I ponder over it while busy with life, then I find a moment where everything is calm, sit down with my iPad, get a few lines in- a story just taking shape…

No, you can’t have ice cream. Stop kicking your sister. Can we talk about this in, like, 10 minutes?

So, as I was saying,…

It has been absolutely marvelous to find I do still have things to say that people want to hear. We writers understand, that while it takes a lot of hard work, it is not really something you choose. At least it wasn’t for me. It has called and beckoned me my whole life. Even before I knew how to write words, I was writing on anything I could. Long, scrawling loops of imaginary cursive (always my favorite).

My mom enrolled me in this summer writing program one year. It was a week of lectures and readings and such. I was in heaven. Learning from successful writers and other kids of all ages who loved to write, like me, was one of the greatest memories of my childhood (that is all mine). From then on, I always carried pen and paper. I have so many notebooks filled with, mostly garbage, but there are a few gems hidden amongst all the muck. But that’s how it works, isn’t it?

Oh, yeah. Pizza. Kids. Kids who need to eat and go to bed. Which will begin the nightly two hour battle. It’s a wild time to be alive!

I journaled almost everyday for most of my youth. I kept at it through college, and when I dropped out (not enough money), and when I moved back in with my parents. Then I met my husband and I was too busy being enamored. I jotted things down here and there. I still used it as a therapy tool, but I didn’t have the same flow. Then kids came and that was all consuming. Most of my interests were put on hold and being a mom was it. Which was wonderful and rewarding, and not something I ever planned on loving so much.

I used to scratch out poems spontaneously all the time. As I got older, the words began to stick. My flow was getting dammed up…

Can I have a turn on your iPad? Mommy, when are you going to be done?! Please, don’t put that around my neck.

Right, poetry, dammed up. As the kids got older, there came some clearing of the fog in my brain. I began having ideas and opinions on issues people were talking about. I managed a few epic Facebook posts when the girls were napping, or sleeping, or I had somehow managed some alone time. I began keeping a notebook in my purse again. And not just for those random grocery items I thought of while out, or as something for my kids to doodle in when they were bored, but as a place to scratch out my ideas and save them for a later date. I’m not sure when that date is yet, but I think it’s coming soon.

As I continued to jot these things down, it was like the dam began to crack. Some days chunks broke off and I wrote as much as I could. Then it would slow down, until another crack began, and then another chunk of the dam gone, letting the ideas gush out.

It’s a wild ride trying to figure out what your voice is again. The essence of who I am has always remained constant with me, but I am not the same person I use to be when writing was all-consuming. I have a lot more to say and a whole lot more fear of sharing. But I also know that if I keep it all in and don’t try, I’ll be worse off. It’s one thing to take a break while raising babies and little ones, but entirely another to continue ignoring my voice when I am being presented time to give it a try.