I Wanted to Write

 I wanted to write.

I’d wanted to write

for a very long time,

and I was doing it.

Of course.

Letters, journals, poems.

Whenever I wasn’t doing

something more important,

wasn’t doing whatever

the world told me

must be more

important,

I sat at my 1956 manual, portable

Smith-Corona typewriter,

my high school graduation gift

from my parents,

and I wrote.

I might have gone on that way forever—

long letters,

probing journals,

small scraps of poems—

except that my last excuse

for not attempting more

walked out the door

and went to

first grade.

That’s when my husband

came to plead his case.

“It would be great,” he said,

“if you went back to work

and earned

some

money.”

And it would have been great, I knew.

Except for the vision that visited

even as he stood before me,

trying not to plead.

I saw myself on my deathbed,

a very old lady—

at least I hoped

I’d be a very old lady—

wailing to the beckoning stars.

“Wait,” I was crying.

“Please, wait!

I wanted to write.

Nobody ever

gave me

time

to

write!”

And in that moment, I knew.

No one would ever give

me time to write.

I had to take it

for myself.”

So I said, “Give me five years

to work seriously,

professionally,

fulltime

at the writing,

as though it’s a job

someone is paying me to do.

In that time,

if I can’t achieve something

you and I can agree is success,

I won’t give up the nasty habit of writing,

but I will go back to work

and bring home

some money.”

Maybe he was just a nice guy.

Or maybe he was afraid to say no.

Just a bit afraid.

Or maybe it was some of both.

But he agreed.

And the next day

I found myself sitting

in front of that old typewriter,

staring at the blankest sheet of paper

anyone has ever confronted.

All else followed

from

there.