an invisible string

10 years.

I’ve been a writer for ten. years.

Granted, I’ve been a writer longer than that, but a published one for the last decade.

My first published article - an opinion piece for my alma mater’s student newspaper - was published on this day in 2014.

I look back at the words of that bright-eyed aspiring journalist and am encouraged. The verbiage is a bit much, the headline doesn’t quite highlight the main point, and the flow isn’t the most precise - nor is the content for that matter.

But between the lines sits a girl at an obnoxiously peach-colored Chromebook, moved enough to thoughtfully type her words and brave enough to share them.

This 18-year-old baby writer dreams big dreams, looks forward to the future with hope and joy, and lives in the present with gratitude and enthusiasm. She’s found a home in writing, in processing her mind’s endless stream of thinking and turning it into something beautiful on paper, even if it’s just for herself.

I am so impressed by this young girl whose life sat on the cusp of what was known and unknown, who chose to take a leap and see what came from it. She made plenty of mistakes along the way and built dreams that didn’t blossom, but she didn’t fail.

Ten years later, my life looks virtually nothing like I had expected. As I grabbed that October copy of The Crimson White off the newsrack, nearly bursting with excitement and disbelief at my words printed on paper, visions of New York and magazines and Pulitzer Prizes danced in my head.

I still love New York, just from a distance. I (very happily) live in the home where my husband grew up in our hometown, and our daughter sleeps soundly in his childhood bedroom. I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I interviewed someone for story. Heck, my last published piece ran before COVID was even a whisper of a thought.

Because, though post-grad I landed a phenomenal job at a wonderful newspaper with incredible people, I quickly found that journalism was not actually what I loved. New York and magazines and Pulitzer Prizes, all perfectly great and good, were not the dream.

But writing is. It always was. Always has been. Always (to my knowledgeable prediction) will be.

In our backyard, just to the right of the “football field” where Austin grew up playing backyard football, there’s a small tree growing. A Ginkgo biloba, a seedling from the Quad in Tuscaloosa, taking root and making its home here just behind our home. It will be years before the tree in my backyard looks anything like my favorite tree in Tuscaloosa, the big yellow beauty just outside Gallalee Hall.

Sometimes, as my little girl runs wild across our yard, I look at our little tree and assess its growth, my growth, the kind only perspective can bring. I think of all the dots that connected just so to bring me from point A to point B and everywhere in between. I think of how grateful I am that the dreams I set my sights on did not become my reality, that what seemed to some (read: me) like failure was in reality a divine guidance toward what I most deeply wanted.

I don’t take the time to write as much anymore as I would like. Sometimes it feels foreign, as if it’s slipping away from me. But it always comes back. It is the ever-faithful friend, waiting with open arms whenever I’m able to sneak away. Part of me wishes I could whisper this truth to that 18-year-old version of me, but I know I wouldn’t even if I could. She followed every step just as she was meant to, and I don’t have a single regret for any of it.