Wannabe

On my 30th birthday I decided that it was time to become more that what I was. Maybe I should first explain who I am (or who I was on my birthday). First, I am a woman who loves being a woman. I am a wife and a mother. I try to be an honest a good person. I enjoy reading more than the average person and I love action movies with lots of violence. I am pro-choice, pro-family and anti-death penalty. I whole-heartedly support gay marriage and believe that you don't have to be straight to be a good parent. I am a breastfeeding advocate who believes that all babies have the right to be breastfed. I am a domestic goddess. I enjoy most domestic activities (I hate cleaning), including but not limited to: cooking, baking, sewing, needlepoint, quilting, knitting, mothering. I love my dog even though she keeps wandering off. And I am a wannabe. So, on my 3oth birthday, I decided to take on 2 big wannabe's on my long list of dreams: I wannabe a writer, and I wannabe a runner.

Writing makes sense for me. Ever since I could read, I have had a voracious appetite for books. In high school I worked in the public library and would normally take home 3 books a week. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Spanish which is a lot of literature work. Writing is just a natural extension and starting to write has been, for the most part, painless. Because of my domestic duties/acts of love (ie mothering my girls), I knew that I would not have the time/energy to devote to writing Great Literature, and I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted to do that anyway. I mean, my favorite writers, while amazing storytellers and talented word weavers, are not known for writing Great Literature. I enjoy the story more than anything, and I appreciate any writer who can draw me in to that story be it Stephen King, Agatha Christie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And I don't want to just do what I call mastubatory writing (writing for my own enjoyment), I want to publish. With that in mind, I decided to target my writing towards a very specific market -- romance. And not just any kind of romance, but steamy, spicy, smutty romance. What I didn't expect was to actually love writing it. Writing romance fiction is fun, it's entertaining. It allows you to use all those little fantasies bouncing around in your head. I never really got into reading romance fiction, I stuck to Dean Koontz, Stephen King and anything else that crossed my path, except romance. So I'm surprised to find that, for now at least, I am a romance writer and loving it!

Running, on the other hand, probably makes a little less sense. For one, I am about 55 lbs overweight and I have enormous breasts that make most physical activities a bit uncomfortable. I have been unable to find a sport's bra in my size (they don't exist). I'm not sure what kind of exercise would make the most sense for me. Most physical trainers would be against such a fatty running, it puts too much strain on your bones, ligaments etc, but nothing else seems to do it. I have also been pleasantly surprised with running. I love it. It's a special time I have for myself when I'm concentrating on making me a better person. I feel strong and healthy when I run. I have been using the training schedule in the Runner's World Women's Guide to Running (or whatever it's called) and it's going pretty well. I can easily run 30 min and and have worked my way up to a 1hr long run. I don't actually get that far, only about 7k in an hour, but it's definitely a start.

I wannabe more than what I am right now. This is my year of becoming.