When I was a kid, my mother and father split up. There were various reasons behind the split (as there often are), but I wasn’t terribly affected as most stereotypes would point to being the case with children of divorced parents. I knew my family loved me. I knew my mother and father couldn’t be together. I knew they were better off apart. This sounds like great wisdom and empathy acquired from long visits to the couch of a shrink, but these are all things I was told I’d shown understanding for… as a toddler. You won’t find many toddlers empathetic to much other than potty chairs, dirt, and spit. To say I was weird is an understatement.

I won’t say I was totally unscathed by the experience and, since I’m not what you call a talker, I kept the part of me affected in a journal of some sort over the years. The writing spurned a desire in me to write fiction. Real life is crazy enough and I am all for escapism. So it was a natural fit. I studied English in college after giving up hopes of becoming a Veterinarian. Fast forward again to present day and not only am I NOT writing, I’m not even making the effort I should. I am a barely middle class mother of two with a career in something that, if I got fired tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to find by title in the classifieds. Needless to say, at 31, this is not where I saw my life going. The problem is I never really saw my life to begin with and it’s hard to give direction to something you can’t see.

One of many benefits to being an only child - especially one in a single family household - is getting to do things most kids your age wouldn’t or aren’t allowed. For me, sitting in my mother’s bed with her late at night watching movies past the PG mark was it. Around this time, Highlander intrigued me. A rogue swordsman with a Scottish accent chopping off the heads of other rogue swordsmen shouting “There can only be one!” Awesome movie. Awesome concept. Funny how life imitates art and noticing a good metaphor does not fall ignored by me. While I am not a rogue swordsman, my excuses are serving as rogue roadblocks. For every excuse I’ve ever given as to why I can’t figure it out or get it right, someone else is taking those statements and chopping their heads off meeting success in the process. Someone else who is not me.

In the days when I used to be a heavy church-goer (don’t ask), I’d often hear the appointed clergyman speak fire, brimstone and Karma from his pulpit. Sure, it may not have been officially categorized as Karma, but what else do you call being told that if you don’t use your talent God will not only take it away, He will give it to someone else? It’s the book of Use It Or Lose It, Chapter 59 verse 16, New Testament. A.K.A. Karma. Do nothing, nothing will come to you. Even God believes there can only be one. Or does He?

Lately, I spend my days reading about those who aren’t letting life pass them by and thinking “That should be me! That story! That’s my story! I’m a mother of small children who should be writing at night about stories they dream about that are so vivid you can not only see them as books but MOVIES, TOO!” Alas, my story becomes someone else’s. This doesn’t mean I don’t still have a chance. But in being only one, my story may have to change. In all honesty, my story has yet to be written. Perhaps I can still be one after all.