I am a writer. Books and the written word fascinated me since childhood. My old journal begun when I was 8, written on a lined notebook is still with me, filled with childish poetry dedicated to trees and flowers, or to my dog. They were early attempts at capturing reality on a piece of paper, an understanding even then that thoughts are ephemeral and the only way to make them alive is by writing them down. I wrote mostly for myself, to validate who I was, to bind myself to the world. I kept a diary from the age of 11 until, at 19, when I got married and abandoned it all to having children and being a housewife.

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But I never stopped reading books and writing down memories, some as poems, others as short essays or stories. Then, when the children became teenagers, I returned to college, intent on getting a degree. Between work, housewifery, and mothering, I managed to take a few courses per year and slowly accumulated college credits. The more I delved into my studies, the more I loved academics and particularly writing. Then, when I was in my 40s the many years of credit accumulation reached a limit—you only need two more credits and you will graduate, my college counselor told me. I was stunned. I was prepared to just continue, a life-long learner unaware that my goal was right there.

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“What do I do next?” I asked out loud. And the answer came in an eyes blink. I want to write. I want to be a writer. That summer I signed up for the Stone Coast Writers Conference in Maine. The ten days I spent there were transformative. I found who and what I wanted to be. Surrounded by brilliant, accomplished writers and my fellow writers-in-the-making, I felt more alive and happy than I had ever been. The stimulating conversations, the explosion of ideas around me, opened me up as if I had been a closed, stale room into which an open window brought in the summer wind. I saw with clarity what I wanted.  This was the world I wanted to be part of.

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Knowing the endpoint showed me the road to it. The following summer, after being accepted into an MFA program in creative writing, I began my first semester at Vermont College. The next three years were pure heaven, a continuation of the world I had found at Stone Coast. When I graduated in 1997, I was someone else. I had been transformed into a writer and an independent woman, leaving my old existence behind--I divorced my husband and at fifty, began a new life alone.