Strolling Down Memory Lane

It has been awhile since I checked in with my blog and I figured I should get my fingers typing again.  I have a couple entries planned but today I want to share what has been the most amazing part of the last month or so.  I may have been ignoring my blog but it has been for good reason because I have been stolen away into the land of inspiration.  I have found myself using ever spare moment to scribble in notebooks, lost in my imagination and reliving large parts of my own personal past.  I’m truly excited about what seems to be percolating in my mind even if I don’t know what exactly it is yet.  In hopes of figuring out the story and get it written I have decided to sign up to do Camp Nanowrimo again next month.

After Calgary Expo I started to toss around a few ideas in my head about what I wanted to work on for my writing.  I have a couple of historical fiction stories I am working but I wanted to have something that I could do easily.  Don’t get me wrong I love my historical fiction and I love the research that goes along with it but sometimes I just want to write.  In my university days I solved the problem by writing “questionable” material and although that was always fun right now it is not something that is top of my imagination.  Anyway with the desire to find something that I could work on easily an idea started to take shape and it has quickly snowballed into something (even if I don’t know what that something is yet).  I have a vision of taking the stories from my past (all the good and bad) and turn them into some form of fiction. 

It does seem a little egocentric to think that the things I have experienced might have a place in a piece of fiction or maybe something more autobiographical but the idea is sticking.  It has been a long time since I felt this inspired and driven.  If the planning and thinking about this project are any indication of what writing will be like I think it has potential.  (God that sounds like I’m bragging…LOL).

One of the coolest things to come out of this whole idea is how many of my old memories are coming back to me.  It started off with a couple of memories of some of the more negative things I have experienced but the more I jot down the memories the more that seem to be popping into my mind.  In the last few weeks I have been reliving many moments from my life.  It is amazing me at how much has actually been locked away in my mind. 

This has been both a blessing and a curse all at the same time.  I think I am gaining a much better understanding of who I am, what I believe in and what I want which has been pretty cool.  On the other hand I have also been reliving some of the hardest moments in my life which has been a challenge when it comes to keeping my mood on the positive side of things.  There have been some nights where it has been quite overwhelming as I feel the rush of guilt, anger and sadness that have surrounded some of these more negative moments.  I’m sure a lot of these memories were locked away in my subconscious for a reason but at the same time in unlocking them I have opened my mind up to a whole new level of understanding.

What I have discovered is that in looking back on some of the worst memories I can see them in a different light.  It might be the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia in some cases or just the fact that the passing of time has made things less intense but I have learned a lot.  I can know accept the events I went through as I was growing up as a part of who I am.  I love the person I am right now and I don’t think I would have near the compassion, empathy or desire to help people if I hadn’t seen some of the worst things people could throw at me.  It is a pretty powerful realization to actually accept your past for what it is and for what it has made you.

Who would have thought that a simple idea for a story would turn into something that would become so powerful for me?  Even if nothing comes of the ideas I am so happy to be writing down the memories.  In a perfect world I’m hoping it will turn into something that I can publish that might help other people learn to love and accept themselves for who they are in our world where it seems like people are losing themselves in negativity.  But then again even writing that last sentence makes me feel a little weird.  I guess we will see what the future holds.