Hello World, this is my first blog post, ever. Let me tell you why I am here:  I used to love writing.  I always wanted to be a writer.  While other kids were playing kickball on the playground, I was that girl on the edge of the field scribbling furiously in my “field book”.  I wrote two “books” by the time I was 12 (a sad mix of total innocence and pre-teen crushing) and I wrote to Judy Blume four times (she never wrote back).  I dreamt of getting out of our working class town and traveling to some big city to write more. Then it all changed: in 9th grade I left a notebook in a classroom by mistake.  This notebook was full of thoughts and musings and a young girl’s thoughts.  When I went back for it, the squat, middle aged, mustached teacher leered at me as he made it known what he thought about my innermost thoughts (he seemed partially concerned, partially aroused).  I was humiliated.  That day was the last time I put anything from inside me out there.  It was the last time I wrote.  I was 14.

Here I am 47 and I am in midlife.  I am trying to connect to that piece of me that I gave up so long ago – given up because I was shamed, judged and (what felt like then) violated.

So here I am, ready to write again and trying to make it through midlife.  But rest assured, this blog is not about me rehashing old wounds.  It’s about being fabulous in mid-life and claiming those things we left behind because others couldn’t handle what we offered and sent us messages about who we are – and we believed them.

What did YOU give up?