Do you remember looking forward to the month of June?  It was a magical month – it meant summer was coming, and school was coming to a much anticipated end.

It was when you could put shorts on for the first time without your mom rolling her eyes.  There was prep days, test days, picnics and half days.  It felt like there was more time, sometimes too much time, lessons were over but you were required to be in a class – where the classroom may be dismantling for the summer.  The rooms always seemed so sad and empty when bulletin boarders were removed and tucked in a file cabinet.  Posters rolled up and desks emptied.

June was also a little scary, especially if you were a senior.  You were graduating and starting in a new direction – the unknown.  Even if you were excited and ready to leave, it is bittersweet for some, others never looked back.

By the beginning of June the windows are open and stay open until they get an air conditioner put into them.  The sound of crickets is always a confirmation that summer is whispering, ‘Here I come.’  It is the time before the AC has to carve through the heat – the nights are cool and in the 50’s – perfect sleeping weather.

This June is special for me.  It was a year ago this month I began to believe I could take the steps into becoming a real writer.  (I say real because I have always been a writer, I just never considered doing it on a larger scale then my own enjoyment.)  All because I took a chance and emailed Laura Munson.  All because she reached back, all because I changed my mind set and decided I wanted something special, something unique and something that would make me happy.  Writing always has, even if it was something I was not happy about.  To write was to heal, to write was to create, my writing is my joy.

Every month since then has brought a positive gift – right to me, the universe lined up and wrapped it with a bow.  I remember a little more than a year ago, as I was driving to a job I did not want to be at – I began each morning with a prayer – to please, keep my family safe – all my family, no matter where they were.  To please let us keep our home – to live safe and sound, and to please, bring us something special, so special we could not believe what is coming it was so special and know it is right around the corner and waiting for us to recognize it.  Something wonderful, beyond our expectations.  I would say that out loud, by myself, in my Jeep on the way to work at 5am. In the rain, the cold, driving home in a snow storm, the summer sun and the evening stars – they all heard my prayer, my chant, my hope – call it whatever you want, but it has come true.

Someone once told me never stop saying what you want most out loud – to shout it to the universe if need be – put it out there, so it can be answered.  You don’t stop saying it, because if you do, it might have been heard and answered the next day.  I said my wishes out loud for almost two years.  I noticed almost immediately things got a little easier, there was one or two things that were changed, or I met someone special, or things were just a little easier to cope with at the time.

Now there are big things that have come into my life.  We have saved our home when I thought the bank was going to take it.  We fought the process and we won.  I have met some of the most remarkable people.  Many of them professional writers.  I’ve surrounded myself with people I know will teach me, guide me and share with me.  How else could I get better, or explore what it is I want to learn unless I do that – reach out, and they reached back.  Outstanding.

So sometime in this month of June – take a moment for yourself, think about what it is you really, really want.  If it is to accomplish something you’ve been putting off.  Exploring something new, finding yourself again when you’ve put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own.  You may be pleasantly surprised what life will bring to you.

Writing my morning pages the other day, I was saying how I cannot wait to see what my daughters do in this life.  Not what life brings or does to them – they are in control of their destinies, their futures.  That was a concept I had never thought of before, not for myself.   Its not what life deals you – its what you take from it, creative from it, how you want to use the time you have on this earth.  It is that sentence that inspired me to write this months poem.  I hope you enjoy it.  Please let me know if you do.

Breathe Deep, Think Peace

Patty