Being a Writer

When someone asks me, "What do you do?"  The answer is never a simple one.  They expect an answer like, "I'm a teacher or I'm a therapist."  But, of course, although I consider myself to "do" both of those things, as well as many other things, I cannot claim to be one or the other.  If I say I am a stay-at-home mom, there is a stigma that goes along with that.  They are wondering, "Is she lazy?  Is she not smart enough to work?"  Even if that's not what they are actually thinking, it's what I think they are thinking. 

Before I had children (B.C.), I worked during the day and attended college at night.  I worked for McGraw-Hill Publishing company in Manhattan as an Editorial Assistant after getting an Associates Degree at Nassau Community College.  Then I attended Hofstra at night while McGraw-Hill paid a large portion of my tuition (that was when companies did things like that).  After I got married, I worked at several jobs on Long Island.  Most notable of those was working for Worldwide Computer Services as a Sales Support Administrator.  Our little office was very successful and we won trips and prizes as we competed against other satellite offices to place software engineers as consultants in various industries.   Later, I worked for Arrow Electronics where I was a Marketing Communications Administrator. Where I produced hardware and software catalogs, newsletters, yearbooks, and pioneered the world of  "Desk Top Publishing."   I graduated from Stony Brook with a Bachelor's Degree.

But then I had my daughter.  This wonderful, beautiful, child whose life and spirit was put into my hands.  I knew that there would never be a job that could compete with raising her.  Nothing would ever be as fulfilling, satifying, or demanding.  So my husband and I made the decision that we would "work it out" and I would stay home . . . for a year.  When she was a year old, we decided it would be okay if I stayed home until she went to pre-school.  When she was three and went to pre-school, we decided it would be okay if I stayed home until she when to Kindergarten.  When she went to Kindergarten, I had a six month old son . . . so I stayed home until he went to Kindergarten. 

I volunteered:  Girl Scout Leader, PTA President, Community Volunteer.  I became a free-lance writer for a local newspaper.  I started researching my family tree.  I fed the need I had to accomplish things, to have a social life, to feel productive, through these things.  But I thought I would go back to work . . . someday. 

When my son was in Kindergarten planes crashed into the World Trade Center.  Then a few months later, I got very sick and nearly died.  I lived in spite of the odds.  I asked myself, why did I get to live and go home when so many other parents didn't get that chance.  What was so special about me?  I also asked myself, what have I not accomplished that I need to before I die.  Two things came to mind, I need to finish raising my children and I need to write a novel. 

As my daughter entered her teenage years, I realized that the network and support system of other stay-at-home mom's had disappeared.  I found that there were children that were close to my children who had homes in which they felt unsafe, or where they lacked guidance, or where they felt frustrated.  I began to understand that you can't help a child unless you can help the parent.  The child, while they stay a child, is a prisoner of his or her environment.  The "system" does not always protect them.  I turned my attention to trying to help these young people. 

When my daughter was 15, I finally figured out what I wanted to write about.  I told her that it would take many hours of each day to write a book.  I didn't know if I could do it.   I didn't know if it would be any good.  I didn't know if it would ever get published.   And this "beautiful child whose life and spirit was in my hands" told me, "Then do it for me, Mommy."  And so I did.

I am a writer.  I wrote a story called "The Tin Box."  It is a young adult novel.  And while it is a love story, a mystery, an historical recount of periods gone past, it is mostly about family and growing up in differing degrees of dysfunction and learning that you cannot control or be responsible for anyone else's actions or reactions.  You can only control and be responsible for your own actions and reactions.  The most you can do for others is hope to influence them. 

I am a Writer.