Full and Unfinished

I'm writing again, Mrs. Collins.

For fun.  For the joy of it.  Because I have lived 42 years on this planet and I have a lot to say.  So stick around.  If you want.  I'm not telling you how to spend your time.  I use Oxford commas, and I put two spaces after the period and if that makes me look old and betrays that I have used an actual typewriter, then so be it. I accept my fate. 

Why am I writing now?  Because I walked into the post office on an average Tuesday afternoon. The post office, like the grocery store or church, is one of those hallowed small-town institutions where you can conduct the business of your life and bump into someone you know for small talk. Mail is not delivered directly to street addresses. Postmen do not drive around town delivering packages and letters to tidy little mailboxes perched at the edge of people's properties. In fact, Amazon won't even deliver packages unless you manage to find the right delivery driver, bribe him, hand over your firstborn, and put out cookies and milk every Prime Day Eve. All of it goes to the post office, gleaming blocks of aluminum mailboxes.  The same worn-out beige tiles on the floor, the familiar smell of paper and ink and industrial cleaner.  We all stand in line for our packages.  We march in and out, past funeral announcements and school fundraisers tacked to the door. And we greet each other, face to face, eye to eye, in the flesh, like real human beings. 

On this average Tuesday afternoon, I bumped into my favorite high school English teacher.  In 2001 she read my essays and graded me fairly, but with an iron red pen. She saw potential, demanded I live up to it.  She encouraged me.  She sent me to the Young Adult Writing Project at Arizona State University, to write under the mentorship of her mentor, G. Lynn Nelson.  She introduced me to Sherman Alexie, Richard Brautigan, the beat poets, the classic American poets.  She played Mozart "for your minds," she always said after she had handed out an exam. She is tall, white blonde curly hair, warm, matronly, and probably a little bit stern. In 2002 I was her student aide, and I spent many a day grading the daily writing exercises, printing envelopes, and helping to keep her classroom tidy.  We had a lot of time to talk; I needed someone to listen. She is a great listener.

On this given Tuesday, she smiled brightly, as she always does when she sees me. Sparkling blue eyes.  Face framed with white curls. 
"Hey!  How are ya?"  
I smiled, she asked how I was doing.  
"Fine," I said, "just working from home and enjoying the quiet life." 
"Are you still writing?" 
I expected this question.  In all the years between 2002 and that fateful Tuesday, if ever we bumped into each other, she asked the same question:  Are you still writing?

Invariably, I found excuses that jerked out of my mouth dipped in embarrassment and the shame you can only feel under the eye of someone who mattered, who made a difference, at exactly the time in your life when you needed to matter and someone needed to make a difference.  Ashamed that she put so much faith in my ability and I had spent the last 20 odd years writing words for other people.  Journaling, yes, I always journal, but not really writing creatively. Writing likely in the millions of work emails.  Creating policies and procedures.  PowerPoint Presentations.  Spreadsheets.  Sometimes a newsletter. Plenty of essays and critical thought pieces for my degree.  And here and there I started, then stopped, the novel I had planned to write since I learned how to form letters on a page.

But I'm burned out. I've been in the corporate world for way too long.  I've made other people more money than I will ever see in my lifetime. My "way with words" has served me, and others, well.  I'm tired. I want to create again, feel the rush of inspiration.  The kernel of a story bloomed into a precious seedling, planted deeply across a page. 

So, Mrs. Collins.  You're not gonna believe this, but the next time you see me, my answer will be different. And you can pull out that iron red editing pen and tell me how to do it better.