Beginning Again

My life has taken a drastic turn. That was not something I was expecting to happen again at the age of 28. For the past few years, I lived as a stay-at-home wife and mother. Now, my marriage is ending, and not by my choice. I've moved out of the home I shared with my husband, and I only have my young daughter half of the time.

I was left completely afloat. I had occasionally worked as a freelancer doing web design. The jobs I was able to find were few and often far between. In between, I was left without a project or purpose. I spent most of my days watching Netflix and browsing Facebook. I knew I needed something, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what.

That's when the binders revealed themselves like some kind of miracle. One was a deep purple, full of folders. The other was hot pink in color, with a drawing of a fairy slipped into the back pocket. Both held thick handfuls of printed sheets clamped within their rings.

I've always had a passion for writing, and these two binders held my most promising attempts at novels. I knew immediately upon seeing them what it was that I had to do. I fired up my computer and found the file I was looking for - the second draft of the pink binder's story. I sat myself down and I worked harder than I had in a long time. From the moment I woke until my eyes burned with a need for sleep in the wee hours of the morning, I wrote. Within a week I had finished the first book of the series I had started.

It was time then to send it out for revisions and start researching literary agents. By the second day, I was feeling lost again. I couldn't handle just sitting around waiting and twiddling my thumbs while I waited for my editors to get around to my story. Finally, I had another idea.

I applied to school. I had never finished my bachelor's degree. While it was in progress, I had become extremely sick and was unable to continue at that time. At several points, I had thought about going back, but my husband didn't see the need. I wanted that degree badly, but could not achieve the goal without his support. I realized suddenly that I no longer needed his permission, and within an hour I was on the phone with an admissions counselor.

From the look of it, I'll be back in classes in a month and a half, starting on his birthday, which seems a little more than coincidence. I see it as a sign, and a good one at that. I'm replacing my love for my soon-to-be-ex with a love for myself and a love for what it is that I do, which is no longer nothing.