Today

Today I received my first check for my very first articles in a magazine. I am so excited! Yes, I was a professional writer the moment I started writing for a media information company several years ago (before the layoff), but this is different. This is in print in a very nice magazine. This is writing that is genuinely appreciated by the magazine owner/editor, and I am not merely another employee in a large corporation that no one listens to. She listens, she takes my ideas into consideration, she is happy to have my dedication and creativity.

Today I also saw a writing contest held by a different publication, and whereas several years ago I might not have given it a second thought, now I am seriously considering giving it my best shot and seeing what happens. I believe I could actually win. The prize is a good one, but that would really be secondary. The prize for me would be winning - knowing that not only do I now believe I can do it, but that I actually CAN.

I know where this uncertainty came from. It came from years and years of classmates, teachers and others daily instilling by one method or another, the thought that I should not be who I am and cannot do what I dream. Reasonable dreams, perhaps...nothing too big or too outside of the box. That I was not good enough in some way or another. That I was not who I "should" be. I can even recall someone in a position of authority at the media company telling me that I could not do something on the computer that I knew beyond all doubt that I could. I felt as though I had a sign on my forehead that read: "Please disregard my intelligence and underestimate my ability." It has been as if to believe in myself was somehow wrong. As if almost everyone around me was saying. "Oh no, not you, you can't do that. Maybe someone else, but not you."

And so, ever since my divorce I have been in the process of un-brainwashing myself. Of cleaning out the garbage that others have tried to pile into my heart...I often wonder how long this process will take. All my life? No matter how long, the process is obviously so worth it. Today is proof, and I hope it's just the beginning.