It’s hard to put into words the way I’ve been feeling the last few months because I’ve never been to this place before or anywhere like it. I feel like someone hit the pause button on my life after my daughter was born, and then just pressed play again. I woke up.

For the last 11 years my life has been devoted to my children and writing my young adult fiction books, but I never felt comfortable in my own skin, really, until now. I’m not sure if it was finding a way to print my books that helped reset me, but it sure helped.

I still get the most awful bouts of anxiety, where I feel completely paralyzed and only hear the voice in my head that says I’m a fool, stupid, boring, unattractive and generally a pain. But the voice is a little dimmer now, it’s like it knows that someone else in the driver’s seat who knows how to turn the radio up to drown out that voice.

The process of learning to print my books and at the same time joining the working world again in a job I love and am trained for, as a newspaper reporter of all things small community and really fun/interesting/surprising, I feel like I’ve finally found my voice. It’s been there all along, this voice tells me how to get to places I want to go, who to talk to, who not to talk to, when its ok to cry, when its not ok to cry and when it’s ok to risk it all on a toss of the dice.

I feel like a complete person now, someone who’s not missing pieces but doesn’t know where to find them or how to even put them in the right spot. My puzzle feels kind of done. And I know that I have lots more living to do, but it all feels right. I’ve been working at being a writer since I graduated university in 1995. We’re in the 20 year ball park here. And life is very good. The quest has been hard, long, including famine, and desertion, it has been full of trials with my  health, and it has brought me a wonderful husband and two gorgeous children who mean the world to me.

So at the end of my quest, as I begin another, I think it’s time to rest for a while. But who am I kidding? Resting has never been my thing. I have two more books to write to complete my series, three books to print, and many more people to meet and write about. I can’t wait to get started.