Seven years ago, I married my best friend.
I could tell you the story of how we met. I’ve told it a million times. I could tell you of our mutual love of all things Disney. I could tell you of our honeymoon at Disneyland, during the 50th anniversary of the park opening.
But I’d like to talk about a different aspect of our life together, and how she saved me.
You see, when Rachel came back into my life about eight years ago, we hadn’t seen each other in years. Despite being great friends, our lives had taken different paths. She was married, had kids, and traveled. I stayed here, working and trying to be a writer. And we both went through some rough times. She got divorced. I lost my parents. We both struggled for a while. But we each came through it stronger.
After a short engagement, we were married. And a few months later, when I told her I wanted to leave the information technology support position I had held for five years, she understood. She encouraged me to pursue my dream, whatever that may be.
The following years were rough. I tried teaching for short time, but that wasn’t for me. So I put our savings and my trust in a plan to build a home business on the Internet. I failed fast, and started looking for work. This was around 2006, just as the U.S. economy was starting to turn south. Finally, as the last of our savings was spent and we were paying for groceries with credit cards, she noticed an ad for a copywriting position.
I applied and was offered the job, which started my second life in the corporate world. For the past several years, I’ve been happy working as a copywriter for a digital marketing agency.
Once we had some solid ground under our feet, I started writing again. As I mentioned last week, it wasn’t really until 2010 that I began writing short stories and novels again. After more than a decade, the stories started to come back to me. Little by little, I started to remember how to use those tools in my writer’s toolbox. She dragged me to a local write-in for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Though I didn’t finish that first year, I finished the next one. And I haven’t looked back since.
The Confabulator Cafe has given me a great base of operations, forcing me to write something every week. It’s a nice departure from the marketing work I do all week at my job. Most importantly, it allows me to work alongside some wonderful local writers who amaze and inspire me.
I don’t know if I could pick the moment in my life when I decided to be a writer. I was likely still very young, pecking away at my mom’s typewriter and dreaming of stories to be told.
But I can tell you when I became a copywriter. And when I entered NaNoWriMo for the first time. And I can tell you that neither would have been possible without my writing partner.
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