In honor of the life before

I used to be this creative type. Filled with teen and young adult angst, I would write poetry and songs and dream of starting my own magazine. I had a plan even -- majoring in journalism, minoring in business, writing my business plan as a project for my entrepreneurship class.

I often wonder what happened to me. Life happened I know. But really, that much life?

I have been on a quest recently after 13 years of marriage and three children to rediscover myself, to find that young lady who was fun-loving, creative, and full of passion. Perhaps you've seen a shadow of her somewhere?

I re-read my favorite books often (the Twilight saga [don't judge me! lol] and the Harry Potter series) and wonder at the creativity, the worlds and characters created. I mean you think you know everything about vampire lore and then here comes a sparkly one. You think you have seen the battle between good and evil imagined every way and then there's The Boy Who Lived.

I can't say it's ever been a goal of mine to write the great American novel, but I want my creativity back. I want to think of things in new and different ways. I want to feel like more than a cliche -- the stay-at-home wife and mom who carts kids around in the family mini van and struggles with the last 10 pounds of baby weight (OK 30, 10 for each kid). I want to bring back a bit of that young lady from the life before.

In tribute to her, here's a poem I wrote back then. One of the few I'm not embarrassed to share. I never said I was any good.

Crescent Moon

A cool somber wind
passes through the curtains
drifting
lazily a part
the silk shimmers
as the moonlight hits it

A crescent moon in the sky
billions of miles away
winking
at me under hooded eye

I lay in bed
wishing
looking at the stars

The crescent moon
smiles white light on me
I smell violets on the wind
purple
the green of the stem

I lay in bed
wishing