Lately, the Internet has been wild with this “25 things others don’t know about you” tag game.  I’ll pass, but give you the one really important thing to know.  It comes with (surprise, surprise) a story.

When I was a young writer–think 13, 14, 15–I had an idea.  What if I took ten life topics like love, money, fate, and family, and wrote an article about them once a year, every year, until I died?  How would I change?  How would my writing grow?  I suppose even then I knew I would forever be in evolution, or at least hope to be.

I say hope to be because there was another idea I had when I was young, and this one kept me up at night.  It started to haunt me one night at a school sports event and has yet to let up, even to this day. 

Looking at the several hundred people in the stands, I had a stunning realization: Hardly any people populating those stands were physically beautiful.  Up to then, I’d assume it was just me that was ugly. Since everyone on TV was lovely (there was no reality TV then), I assumed I was just the odd one out. 

When I did not find a single TV-level beauty in the crowd, I was literally stunned, frozen in my tracks. Why…This changed everything! My mind raced.. But, but, but… If they were not beautiful, what did they have to live for? (Yes, this really did cross my mind.) I started looking closer.

The real problem, I soon realized, had nothing to do with beauty. The real problem was that the folks in the stands were out of shape, or smoking themselves to death (you could do that indoors then), or dressed in the least flattering clothes I could imagine. This was especially true for those who were even a day over thirty. Through my young eyes, all I could see was that these “old folks” were slouching, bored, tired–the vast majority has no life in them.  No pizazz.  No joy.  No wow.  Occasionally this changed when everyone stood to cheer a basketball going through a hoop, but otherwise it was all hot dogs and low-grade Melba toast.  

This living of the deadened life, I told myself, would not do.  I promised myself with the deepest of vows, I would not go there.  Not at thirty, or forty, or ever. And I’ve kept my word, often times at great cost. Even when the sweetest of seductions have pulled at me.  You know, the kind that says “You don’t have to do that, you don’t have to upset things, you don’t have to speak out, you don’t have to….”

Why have I ignored those seductions?  Because I promised myself as a kid I would not. No matter what, giving up on life before it was over could never be an option. So while I didn’t write on ten topics every year to watch myself grow (discipline came much later in life), and I’ve become far less judgmental of those who “sit out” the game of life, I have personally stayed firm to “forever being in evolution.” 

Because of this, things in my writing life changes quite a bit.  And it will keep changing.  Some might say that’s not a great business strategy (yet others would). But you know what? Those who think I’m writing to further my business interests don’t get me at all. 

Anyway, if this sounds a bit like a rant, it is.  But I’m not ranting at you.  I’m ranting at me.  I’m shaking myself, as I do every day, and saying “So, woman, how will you stay alive today?”  Because the “one thing to know about me” is this: I don’t want to be one of those people I saw looking like the living dead on the bleachers.  And I’m writing–my Be Who You Are eZine, my books, and this blog–because I don’t want you to be either.