Making My Mark on the World

For someone who can't stand to be around people, at least generally speaking, I've sure done a lot of jobs involving their lives. I've been a residential mental health worker, supporting, teaching and assisting adults with varying psychiatric and/or developmental challenges in navigating day to day life. I've been a lawyer, helping people through some of the biggest events in their lives. Buying a home, setting up a business, getting divorced, or staying out of jail, things like that. Heck, I've even made people, 3 of them. All 3 made it through childhood without me messing things up too much and all 3 became wonderful contributions to the universe. You're welcome, world.

All of those jobs involved me spending countless hours of interacting with people every day in one way or another. From large corporate cocktail parties and board meetings to parent - teacher conferences and chatting with other mommies at a t-ball game, I was forced into interacting with others. It wasn't a good feeling.

In fact, it was a terrible feeling, one that left me exhausted, weak and depressed each and every day for years. Yet, every day I did it. I woke up, put 1 foot in front of the other, and transformed myself into my alter ego. I called her "Work Me". Work Me was everything I wished I could be, gregarious, beautiful, confident, smart, with a winning smile and a can-do attitude. Work Me was, well, in a word, bullsh*t, and every evening, after the kids were in bed, I drowned her in a bottle of wine to get her to go away. Then, sleep, shower, repeat.

What I didn't know then was that I was Autistic. Finally, a name for it. I wasn't socially awkward. I wasn't shy. I wasn't standoffish. There was an actual psychological reason why I always felt like an imposter, a little girl playing dress up, trying desperately to pass as a grown-up.

I can't really explain why, but this new information gave me a tremendous sense of freedom, freedom to walk away from jobs and situations that forced me to be uncomfortable and to live what felt like someone else's life. It also helped that my kids had, by this time, grown up, and moved out of the house. So, I quit. I quit practicing law. I quit doing anything and everything that wasn't contributing to my well - being, including my husband at the time.

But you can't just quit everything and do nothing, I can hear you saying. Of course not. I started doing what I was meant to do, the thing that I've done since before I could scribble letters on a page, I wrote. I poured my heart and about 45 years of pain, insecurity, self-doubt and self-discovery into my poems, essays and short stories. And I slowly started posting them online.

To my surprise, people liked it. In fact, they loved it! My words were touching people, sometimes through saying something that maybe they didn't have the courage to say, or giving a voice to something they couldn't quite identify in themselves. I can't count the number of times I've been messaged by a reader thanking me for either making them feel something or for helping them sort out what was going on in their own hearts and minds.

And sometimes, it was just simply giving the reader a few moments of entertainment or enjoyment. That may not sound like much, but in a world filled with news about viruses, death, economic woes and politics, an escape into something positive, something quiet, is ... Well, I'd say it's absolutely essential (but I would say that, wouldn't I?).

So, just how do I go about this? How do I keep coming up with things to write? Do I ever run out of ideas?

My work is actually very simple. How I go about it is, I write. I don't have a set schedule. I don't force myself to sit for a specific time period, expecting to produce a certain number of words. The truth is, my writing is very much like my mind, controlled chaos.

The chaos is the writing itself. I write based on mood. I have to feel it to write it. I've never been able to develop the skill of manufacturing emotion on a page that I don't genuinely feel. Maybe that means I'll never be a great writer. Maybe it means it's just the way I am. In any case, when the lightning bolt of inspiration hits, it hits me hard. An entire poem or plotline can come to me in a matter of minutes, usually at the most inconvenient times, like when I'm driving or trying to sleep. For this reason, I'm never without a pen and a notepad. There's even one on my bedside table. And on the off chance I am, I have the voice record on my cell phone to preserve my flash of lightning until I can safely get it into my laptop. That's really all there is to it.

Of course, in order to turn chaos into something useful, something that will resonate and touch people's souls, some order must be applied to it. That's where the control comes in. For editing, publishing, promoting, networking with fellow writers, either on specific writing platforms or social media, I employ a more structured approach.

My day starts with my coffee. Nothing happens before coffee. Then, I devote time, usually a couple hours, to the networking and promoting aspects of my job. After that, it's usually time for a shower, some personal errands and downtime. I spend a lot of time outdoors, especially in the nice weather. After supper, it's back to work.

I do my editing and most of my publishing and submitting in the evening. I don't know why, all I know is, for me, it works. I've always felt much sharper mentally as the night comes on. My work passes 2 sets of eyes before it's submitted. Sometimes, it passes those 2 sets of eyes more than once. First, there's my eyes. I give it a once over, mostly for grammar and overall readability, phrasing, etc. Then my work passes to the nitpicky, beady eyes of my husband. He's able to do what I can't, catch typos. When we're both satisfied, it's time to hit submit.

I haven't run out of ideas yet. My ideas come from life and the world around me, so as long as I'm alive and able, I'll have things to write about. And when I don't, I help others put their thoughts and feelings into words through editing. I've edited 4 books for self-published authors, including my husband.

What impact do my little words have on the world? The impact is twofold, first the world gets me. That may not sound like much, but it finally gets the real, authentic me as seen through my words, which will be here long after I'm gone. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, my work, my words, give people in this world a voice they might not otherwise have. People who are too afraid, confused, ashamed, or just too beaten down and defeated to recognize, let alone voice their thoughts and feelings. People who are so exhausted, overworked and overwrought that they've forgotten how to enjoy the simple pleasures of a sunset, the smell of the seasons changing or how wonderful sheets are when they come off the clothesline. To give someone a voice or to make them slow down for just a moment to enjoy life's simple pleasures, well, those are two of the most powerful impacts a person can have on the world. Or at least I think so. And if that's not enough for someone out there, let's not forget, I did create 3 people too: