When I was a little girl, I dreamed of one day owning a bookstore--this was mainly thanks to the movie You've Got Mail. Despite the fact that Meg Ryan's character had to close her store due to a corporate chain taking over the neighborhood and running her out of business, the idea of being surrounded by books all day and working for myself stuck with me for many years. Eventually, however, I ruled out the romantic notion of going into the bookstore business and chose a much more practical career--writing.
Although I have spent many long hours attempting to convince myself that there must be something out there which I could be happy doing (a desk job, for example), I have been unable to get writing out of my heart. It may sound strange to some of you when I say that wanting something other than a husband, two or three kids, and a house has felt like a curse to me, but it takes a lot of courage and work to want something beyond the norm. After having spent this summer traveling across the country, I can comfortably tell you that the midwest is one of the few places where this mindset is still prevalent. Don't get me wrong--there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting these things, and I am more than willing to admit that my biological clock has a tendency to speak up every now and then and hit me with a longing for these things, but wanting something different can be incredibly difficult in a place where opportunities for advancement in fields other than business are few and far between. Which is why, after looking for a place to relocate this summer and finally returning home once again, I decided to make my own opportunities here in Iowa.
As cliche as it sounds, losing someone you love--whether it was long anticipated or completely unexpected, makes you realize how little time we have in our lives. I lost my father to a massive heart attack this past February. He was only 51 at the time and it was totally out of the blue. He had high cholesterol, sure, but he had never had even a tiny episode with his heart. To say that my world was shattered would be an understatement. My dad and I were very close, and over the past few years our relationship had grown from merely parent-child to one of friendship. He took me in for over a year and a half after I graduated from college and was working a terrible job for very little money. When we each moved out and got our own places, we still saw one another all the time. For a fully grown man, he wasn't very good at taking care of himself. He and my mother had gotten a divorce five or so years earlier, and all of his money went to child support, rent, and his perpetual cigarette fix. This meant that he often had very little food, and what he did have was poor quality. He seemed to survive mainly off of bologna sandwiches and microwave popcorn. It was difficult to see him struggling in this way--after all, he had taken care of me all of my life. It suddenly seemed like the tables had turned and he was the one who needed looking after. I resented him for it at the time--like a stupid, self-involved twenty-something, I felt like I had to be his parent all of the time. I brought him bags of groceries when I had a few extra dollars, I listened to him complain about my mother and his financial problems. I sat on his orange-gold couch in his cold, wall-bare, ex-hotel room of an apartment and pittied him as I looked around at the mess. I should have appreciated him more. I wish I would have known that the Valentine's brunch my mother threw for us would be the last time I saw him alive. I wish I could remember if I had hugged him and told him that I loved him. I wish that I had gone to see him on that Sunday and brought my own dinner instead of letting him tell me there wasn't enough pot roast for more than 2--the pot roast we later ate after returning home from the hospital where we found out he'd died. I never got to say goodbye.
This blog is supposed to be about turning my life into something positive, but I can't start it without telling you what got me to this point. My intention is to be honest and uncensored. I know that some topics, such as my feelings after my father's death, may make some readers uncomfortable, but that is not my intention. I simply want to spend my life openly and honestly, and it is difficult to do that without giving the whole story. It's been nearly 9 months since my dad died and a lot has changed in my life. I now work in a used bookstore. It's almost like owning my own, except with none of the risk of starting a small business. Although it doesn't pay nearly enough, it is the most fulfilling job I have had so far in my twenty-five years of life. I quite my job at a large corporation to pursue something that I feel passionate about and I started my own creative writing group. I have been running Modern Ink for a few months now, and although I am a bit scatterbrained, I find that I love leading a group and teaching creative writing. We started off with two members (just a friend and myself) and now we have grown to a comfortable. I am happy to declare that everyone in Modern Ink is a talented writer, and I appreciate their dedication to the group. In addition to surrounding myself with books on the daily and writers once a week, I am also applying to the Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate program at the University of Iowa. I have decided that writing is only an impractical career choice if I never take myself seriously and actively pursue it. I have been working on a book for nearly 3 years now and I know that it is something that would interest a large audience. One day, I hope to see it on Best Sellers kiosk of the very bookshop I currently work in. For now, however, I am content to work on improving my life. I will eventually figure out where I belong, but in the meantime, I am determined to enjoy every day.
In the next post, I plan to recount the adventures my little sister and I had on our road trip out West this summer. Stay tuned to find out what happened when I suddenly found myself wearing a giant corn costume on national television!
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