500 Words or Less…

Brief Stories As A Means To Get The Feelings On Paper Consistently.

This exercise is invigorating myself and craft for a reason beyond my job to write. I wanted to be creatively productive beyond my job. I was feeling that itch, that “did I do a good job?”, validation outside versus fulfilling it within. I kept running out of time to journal, I have stalled on my letter writing to penpals, and barely reply to emails. Problem solved, I can write for myself. So here I am, laying out some words to be consistent to the craft. I am a full time worker with a small business and a teenage daughter, Sophia. She is a breath of fresh air to my life. She illuminates everything gloomy and her smile melts anything troubling my mind. The deep problem is that I want to spend every waking moment with her, catering to her every whim. We are not yet financially set for days off frolicking in a garden, eating ice-cream for lunch and rich pasta for dinner. So I have to manage the time with her better, balancing it with work and my small business.

What I love about my daughter is her tenacious spirit to live. She is a surviving twin. She was born at 24 weeks gestation with her sister. In the beginning, everyone was fighting to give her a chance to live and be supported. Now, fourteen years and eight months later it feels like I am the only one championing for her well being and quality of life. Being a caregiver and spiritual gladiator for my child is rough. I get tired, there are battles I win, battles I lose, battles I forfeit just to survive another day. Nobody understands the battles I fight privately trying to make a decent life for this child who beat every adversity and kept herself alive. I don’t want pity, just a fair and fighting chance to live a life without limits.

I promise not to boast and brag about Sophia all of the words this month. I am a writer and visual artist who creates in watercolor and ink primarily. I have a bad habit of keeping my work a secret. I am working on improving that. Most creatives I know are introverts who share their work freely and keep their personality tucked away. I am the opposite, extroverted and social with my personality but keep my art tucked away. Working on changing that. I will be sharing and selling some of my art this Friday, which is to get out of my house and connect with the creative community in a new way. Wish me luck and less nerves.

My day job is busy, productive, a lot of moving parts, but very straight-laced. I don’t normally play by the rules and color in the lines, yet it is the way of work. I think lately I have been looking for ways to balance life, forgetting I am a whole creative being. I hope you join me on this journey. Now I am here, making peace with myself first and offering it out to the world because I can’t be the only one that feels this way, right?

Plate of delicious pasta, the fancy kind with lots of cheese. Photo by Ellen Cappard