I'm Here!

It will probably seem absolutely ridiculous to nearly everyone who reads this, that at this very moment I am a little queasy, on the verge of tears, pittin' out, and holding back a smile, all at the same time.  But for those of you reading this, and there are for now only a select few, you all know me well enough to know that this is a small step for mankind and one GIANT LEAP for "Ootch" Heather Vaughan (Porter) Adamson:  this is my first post/blog/attempt at writing for the "world" EVER!  And it feels great!

Now, like Amy Dunn, who felt that without informing people that she was running a marathon, she might back out, I send this to you so you will know that I have finally taken a step towards "really" writing something.  I hope you all know that I value your opinions greatly and although I may need constructive criticism, please be gentle with me, for I am still new at this, and at 41 years of age I can't guarantee that I'll rebound from whatever stings!  In other words:  I want to share with you all but will need time to get this thing right and actually feel like it works for me.  I have no idea where this will take me, and I PRAY that it is not like e-mail in my life:  fleeting, difficult to access and maintain, a nuisance, and better left for others to enjoy.  I want to find a way to say - and share - what is in my head and hand.  Like my special box from Amy (you again?!) says:  "The writer must write what he has to say.  Not speak it."  -Ernest Hemmingway

So this post (is that what it's called?!) is fairly boring to you, I'm sure, but speaks volumes for me.  I'm no longer on the verge of tears or queasy, but I'm still sweating.  I know you don't need that visual, but it's in my head!  I am excited about figuring this whole thing out and having a place to write my thoughts, other than in my "Writing" journal.  Most of what I write is somehow incomplete - a beginning, a middle, or an end, of something larger, but those larger pieces never seem to get completed.  I am not a poet, or a short story writer.  I feel in me there is a novelist that just needs the time and place (space?) to get it all down.  Those days may or may never come, so for now there is this:   What I Know.  What I know about life as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, grandmother, aunt, cousin...41 year old multi-cultural woman.  I can only write what I know.

Ed and I had a brief, yet interesting, conversation on New Year's morning.  I believe that we both feel somewhat unsatisfied with what life has given us.  When we take the time to look around, we are thankful and know that we are blessed, but somehow a sense of satisfaction with what we have achieved seems to be missing.  We are starting the year wondering what we achieved last year, and how this year will be different.  Maybe that's the whole "New Year's Resolution" bug creeping in and trying to attach itself.  Maybe I'm sitting here right now because we are less than one week into 2011 and I feel like there is still time to jump on board and resolve to DO something.  When we moved back from Florida in December of 2004, I swore to myself that I would have a completed piece of writing by the time I was 40.  That gave me 4 1/2 years to do something.  Although there are random pieces of writing in a journal, on scraps of paper and on my external hard drive, there is nothing finished.  Nothing completed.  And I'm now 41 1/2.

It is time to DO something.  (Maybe those Nickelodean commercials are getting to me!)

I may never write the great American novel, but this is What I Know :  In 2011 I can at least say that I made a step.  I'm taking a chance.  I'm trying something.

I'm hopeful.