But the very nature of the gift is that it should be shared. I have struggled with how to share my very special gift. Some gifts change your life.

I wanted to share my gift with you in such a way that it changes your life for the better.

My gift begins with a story …

Once upon a time, I was Daddy’s Little Girl.

My daddy is young and handsome and strong and I know he will take care of me.

My parents are young and there isn’t much money but I don’t notice the lack.

I love Saturdays. Daddy and I get up early. Just the two of us. I am 4 years old and Mommy is still asleep and the apartment is quiet.

Daddy and I are going grocery shopping and leave early to avoid the rush.

But first we have breakfast. We don’t always go to the same place but there are always nice waitresses and sticky vinyl chairs and a booster seat.

Eating out is a big treat. Eating out with Daddy – a bigger treat!

The years go by and daddy is always working and tired and the house is a mess and everything is weird and I do my best, my very best, to be a good little girl.

I get good grades. I say please. I say thank you.

I follow the rules, I draw inside the lines, I cook, I clean. I’m good.

I can’t fix what is wrong. What is wrong with me?

Mommy and Daddy argue, Mommy cries, Daddy shouts, no one is happy.

Mommy and Daddy separate. I think this is a good thing.

I didn’t know that Daddy and I would separate, that I would no longer be his little girl.

My story is one told over and over in homes across the world.

It’s not a fairytale but it’s one that many know by heart.

Once upon a time, I was Daddy’s Little Girl.

I know the ending to this story but I’m not sure how I’ll get there. As with most of my stories, there will be forgiveness and understanding.

And love. There is always love.

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A good and very appropriate day for a Free Write because I can write. What I want. There may be laws about what I can write or say against others if they are untrue, but I can stand on the corner and shout insults at passers-by if I want to.

I am free to EXpress myself.

Cool.

Independence. Being on my own. That was a bit step. A great step. In being on my own I learned a lot about what I was capable of and not having to beHOLDing to anyone. When you’re independent you have cut the strings and you can say NO and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

When you’re independent you can choose what you want. You don’t have to take what is given to you.

What else? Independence and being independent is good for the spirit, it flies free. I think of indepence as soaring and going my own way.

Not sure what else to write. In-de-pend-ence. Depends. No I do not want to talk about adult diapers. But maybe I should. I mean, you get older and sometimes you end up losing your independence because now you have to depend on the care of others. The kindness of strangers perhaps. Like being a “little old lady” and having to have someone help you across the street.

Older folks don’t want to stop driving because then they feel they have lost a big part of their independence. But then you sometimes have to step in and take away the keys because they are mistaking the accelerator for the brakes and going around accidentally killing people.

Eek. Negative thoughts! But sometimes you end up having to depend on others and dependence can have it’s beautiful side – a parent caring for a child, or even..a child caring for their aging parent. It’s dependence but without strings. Or maybe strings that are love. Love, I”m glad I’m ending withlove beecause love is what I think about a lot – how to love and love well and seeing the sands of time go by and wondering if I will learn the lessons I

Time over.

Feel free to check out what I wrote last year.

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If you haven’t already noticed, I haven’t been writing all that much.

I’ve been very busy these days. Nothing stressful, just a constant stream of things to do, people to see, places to go.

Some of you may not know this but I’m a writer. By this I mean that what I experience, what I see, how I think, listen and live – I want to capture all this with words.

When I write, I’d like to have a reader be with me, immersed.

I’m probably not considered A Writer if the definition is “published” or “received payment for writing.” It bugs me a little. But it would bother me more if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that I must write.

I haven’t been blogging all that much because I struggle with my desire to write well and to live up to my tagline of giving you something to think about.

Granted some of what I have you think about is whacky but I’m not constantly thinking about love and beauty. I mean, really.

I haven’t been writing that much here because I want to write well. I have quite a few post ideas but the topics I want to write about would take some time and emotional energy. The problem is that I need to write and need an outlet.

A few of my friends have been reaping the benefits as my emails have become the long, chatty, descriptive letters of the past. If I don’t write a QMusings, it’s gotta go somewhere!

I haven’t been writing much here because I would rather give you quality over quantity. In so many ways, I write for me – I want to be enthused about it. My sharing my writing with you is to make writing a more enriching experience for all of us.

The past few weeks have not only been busy but I was given an incredible gift. I hope to write about it.

If you want to take any guesses on what the gift is, I’ll give you some hints.

What do you think I find valuable?
What do you think I find beautiful?
What do you think I find important in life?
What is the real heart of what my blog is about?

Until next time….

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I’ve been meaning to try free writing – just writing what ever pops into my head for a set time and I’m not even sure if I have to pick a topic to start on but if free writing is about flow and no rules, which I am guessing it is, well…I’ll go with the flow.

I’ve been inspired by Urban Thought’s Free Writing, especially having “known” him for maybe a year now. For someone who started his blog not thinking he was much of a writer or even a writer, I think he’s found his voice.

So on to the subject of my Free Write: Time

Uhoh. So the stopwatch is counting down.

Time waits for no one. It’s true. It marches on. We start out thinking that it’s some type of endless bucket and jeez, what kind of metaphor is bucket but maybe that’s dredgeing up something from my subconscious – yeah, like you can’t empty the ocean with a bucket or it would take you forever to empty the ocean with a bucket.

So..let’s toss that metaphor and move on.

Of course I think about time – marking time, wasting time, hoping that I get things done..in time. Yet there is no real time. It’s false. We tick it off to make it make sense but it’s just all there. Eternal. Here I am at some halfway point in my life – if I live to 86 – and it both feels like I have all the time in the world and I have no time.

Yet time has this power over us. It drags our bodies down. Literally. Gravity over time = wrinkles = sagging = aging. I think I listen to my mom too much. She comes up with all sorts of reasons why people look the way they do and why things hurt when you get older.

We fear the march of time. I wonder about it. Here I am with a 25th high school (Good freakin’…) reunion and I recall who I was at the time – some 88 lb argyle-sock wearing GIRL in a navy parka and Birkenstocks and of course I had a massive backpack, we all did. Now here I am a 97 lb woman..a WOMAN and I who would have know it. I certainly had no clue I’d become who I am now. Actually, who I am now is pretty damn good. I think about who I was then, this 18 year old and I see that I was so afraid to let the me I am become. I see that that there is more me to become.

Of course that will take…time.

Time is steps over a journey from soul to soul to growth. Maybe I won’t use my time wisely. But maybe I’ll learn something.

I keep wondering and sometimes it seems that.

….

Well..I ran out of time. So there you have it. Ms. Q…unedited. OK. So I used a the backspace key and corrected typos as I went but now you have maybe some idea of the way my mind works.

Thank you, Urban Thought, for inspiring me to try Free Writing. Those 10 minutes? The time, it did fly.

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HMTKSteve has given me some tips on how to deal with them. I’ve actually put off implementing his tips as well as upgrading and modifying my blog because the process would take a weekend (or more) and right now, blogging should not be a high priority.

I really wish I had more time to write about all the ponderifications that happen throughout my day. Then again, they may only be of interest to me!

One ponderification I’ve had is that when I first started writing for my blog, I had this idea that I wanted each post to be finely crafted and not quite impersonal but close to it.

I also had this idea of “perfection” – which is where the “finely crafted” idea came about. I like to think of myself as a writer. I may not have published anything but I do enjoy writing and I’m told that I don’t do a bad job of it.

This had created a bit of ego-involvement in the entire writing process, which kinda saps the enjoyment of writing. Ego and the care and feeding of it really saps the enjoyment out of a lot of things is what I believe.

Of course I want to write well. What is writing well? Is it for me? For you? What??

Here is where ego and audience collide. I am currently writing this semi off the top of my head instead of being all “crafty” about writing. I think most of you know what I’m referring to.

As I have changed, my blog has changed. That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? I mean, blogs are a reflection of the blogger. Or so I would think. I have certainly seen blogs evolve as the blogger has gone through life.

While there is a sense of security in an unchanging world, a world without change is one that is not evolving. Change may be scary (I’m not that great at dealing with it) but shaking things up a bit usually works out to be a good thing.

But back to my ego. My ego is constantly seeking approval, validation and World Domination. Yeesh.

Life would be so much more fun if I didn’t worry about what other people were thinking and my source of self came from within.

I’d probably be much more generous because EGO is SELF-ishness.

I am not sure how my life would be without ego. I am thinking that it is my ego that is telling me that I need it to protect myself.

But what I’m really trying to say is that yes, a big part of me writes for me: for the sheer joy of writing as well as for what I hope is validation of my skills as a writer.

A friend told me that my writing has become more friendly and open. He’s been with my blog since the beginning but hey, he’s a friend, right? I think one component of this change has been what I hope has been a releasing of my ego-needs.

There’s a lot of Ego out there. I’m hoping to make my life more of a we-go.

Corny but then only ego would care.

I don’t want my ego to get in the way of my doing good. Last I heard, World Domination or the desire for it wasn’t a good thing.

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
-Winston Churchill
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