Candyland Six Months Later: So are we dating now or what?

My missing post is here. The first ever Candyland experience I accidentally deleted a few days back. I don't know if you've missed me (I effing hope so), but I missed you fo sho. I hope you checked out Creepy and Anne's posts. If you didn't, please list your name in the comments so I can give you a virtual swipe.

No, it is not for pleasure. Buuutttt, I'll let it slide as long as you're here right now, my lovlies. So today's post is a blast from the past, but in present time. Weird, I know. I'm still dealing with the loss of Phil Harris on Deadliest Catch, so talk amongst yourselves for the remainder of this post (unless you're being punished with a swipe)...

Enjoy. 

So, I've debated doing this for some time now. You know, sharing my thoughts with the world in a place where I can never ever ever take them back (ever). But as some of you know, I've been hard at work on my first novel for an entire year now, and I'm realizing more than ever that:

a) I'm losing my mind a little

b) Getting published is not a means to an end, but hopefully a lifelong career (even if it pays in peanuts)

c) Being a stay at home mom of my one beautiful princess often leaves me too drained to form a sentence, but I still have the overwhelming urge to write

d) I'm losing track of what's important here. Obviously it's finding a way to meet Steven Tyler. I'd settle for Joe Perry, though...

Writing has always been an escape for me like it has for most people. Though it's difficult to find the right avenue for which to apply it. I picked up my first guitar at 14 and started with the usual suspects: lyrics I obviously thought rocked enough to get me magically signed, and poetry I obviously thought could get me some kind of sensitive, emotional boyfriend who would listen and cry as much as I did (hormones). I did get an offer of representation some years later from a small label in California and I did get that emotional, sensitive boyfriend. 

Turns out after all the searching, neither was a good fit for me. I was always excited for my creative writing class in high school, though lacked the same enthusiasm for the periods of blocked time (in which I was required by law to attend) I merely referred to as "the others." I never had a problem making friends, but I was never popular, either. An oxymoron at its best, everyone knew me, but no one did. It was clear that I was bound to straggle off onto my own path, alone.

Sharing the same lackluster attitude towards Ms. Weaver's commander-style demands and bowl-shaped haircut just wasn't enough to form a lifelong kinship with all those who had a plan for their lives. I just settled into accepting the way my life was forming, blank and restless, yet unsure. It was good enough in high school. But I wanted more. 

I was a daydreamer. A wishful thinker. Full of hope,(or full of something). And then graduation came, which I barely made it to, and I realized I had no goals. No aspirations beyond the dreams. No future. I married my high school sweetheart two months after being cut loose from the grips of higher education, hoping, I guess, to ride on his coattail for awhile until I figured it out. He had so much potential until, well, me. Problem was, I didn't know how to figure it out.

 I continued singing and playing my guitar everywhere I could manage, working every job under the sun from telemarketer to vacuum sales to house cleaner. I was never satisfied. There was a nagging feeling I was meant to do more but I ignored it. Blame it on laziness, or blame it on fear. Either way, it got me nowhere. As my marriage fell apart four years in, amazingly, so did the nothingness. The desire to do something only grew stronger the longer I was on my own and you know what? I owe it all to the one who made it all possible. My childhood cat, Boo-Boo.

Boo-Boo was an ass. A rebel. He never did what anyone wanted him to, until he wanted to. He'd sit in the driveway, grinning from ear to little cat ear, while Mom would honk for him to move for a good five minutes, or until someone would get out and physically remove him. Even then he'd wander back to the same spot just out of aggravation of having been moved. He lived life on his own terms and never apologized for it. A lesson I'm only starting to appreciate.

I have to believe my novel will razzle and dazzle an agent this year, and it will be published, (she chants repeatedly), and I will never (well, I'll try not to) doubt the power of daydreaming, wishful thinking, or hope ever again. Thank you Boo-Boo. And thank you sensitive boyfriend, (who cheated on me). And thank you awful record deal. And first husband for setting me free to spread my wings. But most of all, thank you to me.

For having the guts to find myself through a forest of shady trees and naysayers. For sticking to my guns and most of all...NOT GIVING UP!

Welcome to Candyland, baby.

So now you know how it all came about. The Wizard has been revealed (not really but I'm tired) and hopefully you feel a little closer to feeling me up on Friday after that extra long foreplay (you had to know I'd go there)...

Until then, what is one thing you've learned in the last few years?

Candyland. OUT.<---still the one, and only baby