christmas eve eve.

i am not a believer in new year's eve resolutions because i think you should start immediately instead of using a specific date as an excuse for motivation... usually a motivation that flickers and fades out pretty quickly.

however, i am a believer in fresh starts.

i've basically been forced into a fresh start as of late. my dad's death marked a new chapter in my life in more ways than one. i am reminded of the brevity of life, jarred into a sense of reality, wide awake and re-evaluating everything.

i love to write.

i write on napkins, sticky notes, envelopes. i write small notes and ideas in the memo app on my phone. i have stacks of journals, and cases of them that i lost to hurricane katrina. i have hundreds of drafted emails and word documents on this computer. i love a blank, new sheet of paper but i cannot bear to leave it empty.

it has been difficult to keep the dozen-or-so random day jobs i've had, when forever in the back of my mind i'm thinking, "i need to write that down... i need to write this down... and this..."

it hurts me, physically, that i have not committed more seriously to my writing. God forgive me for not pursuing something you've made me passionate about.

the thing about being a writer is that you absolutely hate it. you love it, but really you hate it. every writer is a little weird. every writer has an odd expression behind their eyes. i've never met a writer that didn't look pre-occupied constantly.

you hear someone say something and you spend twenty minutes thinking about just one sentence that they've said, either thinking it would be a brilliant line in a story or that it's the worst thing you've ever heard. you'll laugh about it in a few weeks because you wrote it down somewhere and you'll never forget it.

(if you are my friend or family, i have one or more quotes from you written down somewhere. there is no question about it.)

writers are usually misunderstood. deeply complicated but profoundly simple. writers itch to understand, love strongly, and spend too much time in reflection. i know this because i am close friends with many writers, and i would like to say i am even related to a few.

my fresh start is that i will become the writer i want to be. i will actually work at it, not play around. so what, it's a dream. well it's not going anywhere unless i use it. it's just sitting there.

i regret that my dad died only have read a few of the things i had ever written. i regret that the people i love most have not yet held one of my books in their hands. i regret that i have yet to see my name in ink.

regret will get me nowhere.

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