26 Apr These Seven Words

“You don’t have any interests or hobbies.”

These seven words, spoken by a girl who was supposed to be my friend, have haunted me for the last two decades of my life. I remember that day clearly. It was June. The cold morning gloom had melted from the sky and given way to a warm breezy afternoon. School was out for the day, and summer was only a few weeks from beginning. I was a junior in high school at the time, and she was a senior, nearly ready to graduate. We sat in the school’s amphitheater, talking about our futures. Her plans for college, my sadness about her leaving. “What was I going to do without her?” I asked.

And that’s when it happened. The moment I learned I had no hobbies or interests of my own.

I was a follower.

Personality-less.

To say these words hurt, would be an understatement and we’ll leave it at that.

Five years later, I saw her standing in line at Target on Black Friday. I’m not sure if she didn’t see me or just didn’t care enough to say hello, but either way it doesn’t matter, we both went our separate ways. I went home to a sleeping husband and baby. And she went… well I really don’t know where she went because a funny thing happened after high school. We lost touch. Shocking I know. But before facebook became FACEBOOK, that sort of thing happened. People let go, moved on, grew up. (Fun fact: I didn’t create any type of social media account until about two years ago.)

So why am I telling you this mean-girl story without a happy end? Because since leaving high school and becoming a writer I’ve learned a few things. First, forming meaningful, deep relationships requires vulnerability. The courage to put your true self out there and say: This is me, this is who I am, and hope they’ll like you enough to stick around–even though you know not everybody will. (NOTE: Even writing this, I fear people still feel this way about me. Sigh. One day I’ll be able to let that go. One. Day.)

Second, thanks to these seven words, I’ve gone on a journey worth sharing. I’ve tried tap, ballet, piano, photography, blogging, cooking, yoga, jogging, cake decorating, scrapbooking, brush lettering, gardening, (I could go on, but I’ll spare you the heavy reading) all in an effort to figure out who I am, what I like, and what my hobbies are, and it turns out, I like a lot of things (yoga is not one of them) and guess what? It’s okay that I didn’t know what I wanted to do fifteen years ago. I mean, who really knows exactly what they wanted to do with their life their junior year of high school anyway? Just saying. But there is one thing I’ve found, and completely by accident AKA divine intervention, that I’m passionate about: writing. I love it. It fills a place in my soul like nothing else, and I want to share it with you.

Yes being vulnerable is scary. Because, no I’m not perfect and sadly neither is my writing, but I’m willing to be vulnerable to form the types of connections I desire to have with my readers. So hello, dear readers, *waves*, this is me! I hope you’ll stick around and read my blog as I prepare to release my first novel, Love on Pointe on June 1, 2017.

In this blog, I will share my love of writing, and what I’ve learned from this crazy journey called publishing. I won’t post everyday, probably not even every week (moderation and consistency are a blog post for another day), but I’ll be sure to let you know about important updates, share meaningful links on writing craft and creativity, and I’ll even do an occasional giveaway. Thanks for reading, and don’t be afraid to be drop me a note to say hi! I’d love to hear your stories too.

With love (and vulnerability),

T 🙂