Terry's 3M's

I hate when I throw myself a pity party. And that's what the last entry seems to be to me.

I totally forgot my whole reason behind this online journal.

I thought that if I had a reason to write every day or maybe even every other day, that I would get back into the habit of writing again.

Since about the age of 11 or so, writing has always been an outlet for me.

My life has never been a very easy one. And when I was 11 I was living with a second cousin and his wife. He was gone a lot on business, and his wife had once said to me: "You're Cinderella...and I'm your wicked step-mother." I don't know if it was intended as a joke or not. But, it did describe our relationship quite handily.

Anyway, I had my own methods of coping and escape. I read tons and tons of books. I also spent time writing. At 11, I was totally infatuated with the character that Richard Chamberlain played on TV--Dr. Kildare. So, I started to write a little novel with myself as a doctor working in the same hospital as the handsome young Dr. Kildare.

I also was thinking of a career as a doctor in real life. But, I did some research (can't write about something you know nothing about--so I had look up tons of stuff). That's when I found out how many math courses I would have to take to become a doctor. Math/me=oil/water. So, I decided that I didn't want to be a doctor after all.

Later, after reading Beverly Cleary's teenage novel, Fifteen, and Leonora Mattingley Weber's Katie Rose Belford novels, I thought to myself, "I could do that." And I started a novel about an abused teenage girl. While I was working on that piece of writing, things got extraordinarilly bad at home and I moved into a foster home...and the novel was lost.

I had kept paper journals, on and off, since that time. But, I have no idea what happened to most of them. Some of them I threw away.

Years later, I started another novel--and I have no idea what happened to that one either. Probably hit a snag and tossed it.

The only things that I ever completed were a bunch of poems. They aren't very good. But, almost a quarter of a century ago (and wow! am I really THAT old?) I bought one of those blank books. A big one. The pages are at least the size of standard notebook paper. And I transferred what I thought were my best poems to that book. It's somewhere in my closet upstairs.

How I managed to save that book and lose all the other things that I've written over the years is beyond me. Yet, other novels started; poems that had not been transferred to the black book; journals that were kept in looseleaf and bound notebooks; all of them have gone. (I've moved 26 times in those years. Including moves from New York State to California, California back to New York State, New York State to Virginia, Virginia to Nevada, Nevada to California and back again. The second time I moved to California, I ended up homeless for about a year. And almost a dozen times here in Las Vegas. I think that might have something to do with all the missing writings.)

Somewhere along the line, I got out of the habit of writing. The actual putting type to disk or pen to paper writing.

What I did a lot of was thinking about writing. Or writing in my head without putting the writing into physical form.

That is why this journal started. To get back into the habit of putting my writings into physical form.

I want a bicycle. Badly. The kids asked why I just don't use one of the bikes in the garage. Right! I can just see me on a 20" bike. (Actually, I did try one time. Disaster!) So, I've told Delton to be on the lookout for a 26" bike for me.

I could have used one yesterday. A neighbor told one of the girls that she spotted Johnny on Tree Line headed toward Charleston. Well, Tree Line is a fairly low traffic street. But, Charleston is a major street...with a speed limit of 45 in this area. Faye and Delton had the car and I couldn't get to see what was going on. Bryan took his bike and Johnny came home on his own. I wanted so badly to just hop on a bike and try to locate my son (and I grounded him from his bike until next week). It would have taken me less than 3 minutes to get to Tree Line by bike. AAAAAGGGhhh!