Despite starting 2024 with the cold from hell (three tests confirmed it wasn’t COVID), I stuck with my new year plan to deep my clean my apartment and organize closets. Even when you strive to be a minimalist, stuff finds a way of piling up.
Tucked in the cabinet where I keep office supplies, I discovered the hundreds of pages of notes, and scattered drafts of what eventually became Love Later—my debut romance novel.
Realistically, I could toss it. In September I set the book into the world. The manuscript safely lives in various locations on my laptop. But as I flipped through the pages, years of memories flooded back from when I first began the journey to writing the book.
The hours spent after my kids were asleep, alone in my then basement. With my marriage falling apart, my heart and soul poured from my pen into a journal of scattered musings about love as it should be (the original title of my book).
I wasn’t a writer back then. I didn’t know that sixteen years later, I’d be the author of two books, venturing into the world of romance novels.
But here I am, happy, focused, centered in my new life. To toss those pages would be like giving up a piece of myself; the person I was, the person I’ve evolved into.
So for now, the pages and memories are tucked in a box. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to let them go, but not yet. Some things are just too significant to throw away.
Living life one word at a time! 