Who do you think you are?

I ask myself this question often. It turns out, during a fifty year period you "are" quite a few different people. I started writing my story when I was in college with my accidental major choice. I had always excelled in English and writing and even participated in the literary magazine at my high school. However, I felt that English was a boring major and decided that I would rather go into Communications to be a broadcaster.

On a crisp Florida day in January I was a senior in high school and looking forward to becoming a freshman at Florida State University in the fall. Just before lunch, our class had the broadcast of the latest shuttle launch on the television, a rare link to the outside world in a classroom. Students whispered and passed notes and generally took advantage of the relaxed atmosphere up until the countdown reached 10 seconds. After liftoff the volume in the room began to rise as the excitement of the liftoff abated. Just as everyone started to gather their books for lunch, the teacher gasped and fell hard into her seat. All eyes went from her to the television and saw the trail of smoke and debris from the Shuttle Challenger as it broke up over the Atlantic Ocean. I took my seat to watch as the announcer came back on to describe what was happening.

As we watched the broadcast, the newscaster cut to the crowd including the family members of the astronauts and the school children who had been bused to Kennedy Space Station for the launch. I felt like a voyeur into the pain that these people were going through, raw emotion spilling out as they tried to process what had just happened. Instantly my desire to be on the cutting edge of broadcasting dried up as I could not imagine being the person on the other end of the microphone asking these children how they "feel about losing their teacher". I was dumbfounded.

I started college that fall without a major declared. That first semester, I took all the basic classes which included ENG 101. The only problem with that class was the time of day, 8:00 am. My ambition when signing up for classes was quickly forgotten when I joined a sorority. By the end of the semester I was failing a subject that was supposed to be my strongest. We had one final project that was weighted like a final exam. We had several choices, I chose to write a play. When the professor returned the papers, everyone received theirs except me. He said "see me after class". I walked up to his desk ready for my lashing when he looked up and smiled. He told me my grade was 100% and he would like permission to copy my play. He also said I should consider creative writing as my major. So I did.

Now I find myself in the middle of the quotation marks of my life. The first half is already written, but this next part is up to me. I used to think of myself as a writer, but I got side-tracked with a career in technology, then a switch to the nonprofit sector. Add in the husband and 3 kids and I've successfully ignored my initial life goals. So who do I think I am now? I have lived so much life and have so much more to say than I did when I was 22 and fresh out of college. I've been blessed with a good life, but it took many twists and turns to get where I am and now I'm going to explore it all through my writing. I'm a writer.