I've always wanted to be a writer. The type of writer that tells a riveting story, that captures the attention of the reader, draws the reader in, and then change's that person's perspective of life...even if just for a fleeting moment.

But I lack discipline and the self-motivation to write on a regular basis and, therefore, ever be a "successful" writer. So many excuses from life. Busy with work, busy with family and friends, too many books out there to read on my own, too many other activities to distract me. Too busy to try to see whether I could succeed or fail.

It's been three years since my last blog post, and there's no excuse other than a lack of effort. In three years, I've experienced the death of a parent, the unraveling of my marriage, divorce, restarting my world over, watching my mother restart her world, trying to date for the first time in 16 years and before a time of social media and dating apps, losing friends and gaining friends, going through my first post-divorce relationship breakup, and dating until I couldn't feel any more and could care less about whether I find someone new.

I decided to start writing again for one reason only: I've been feeling like a hypocrite. Last week, I attended a middle school "Career Jumping Day". Essentially, a speed dating-esque event where groups of three to four eight graders sat at a table for eight minutes with an adult, talking to the adult about what his or her job is and asking questions around what specifically the adult's career entailed. At the table to my right was a police officer; at the table to the left was a med student. Across from me was a gentleman whose job it is to train service dogs...and he brought a beautiful black lab with him. The room was filled with firefighters, police officers, med students or doctors, lawyers, and who knows what else. Then there was me, a manager of a team of technical writers at a computer software company. I can speak to my job for more than eight minutes and keep the time filled, but to make it sound exciting and interesting to a group of teenagers was a little bit of a struggle, especially considering the professionals I was surrounded by.

While I did my best to sound interesting and hip to a group of kids who I realized I could be a parent to and then some, I thought my advice and answers to their questions were good. I didn't quite pant myself on the back, but I came close. When I tried to fill some of the lulled conversation with a particularly shy group of students, I asked them if any of them knew what they wanted to do when they graduated from high school. They all said no, which surprised me. Even at a young age, I knew I was going to have a job that involved writing. Granted, no child likely ever said "I want to be a technical writer when I grow up!", but I knew words, sentence structure, and grammar were going to play a key role in my future.

I tried a different tactic by asking them what they were interested in. One boy shrugged and said, "Video games." To which I said, "You can build a career off of that. Find something that you are passionate about, and you can find numerous career paths that involve some form of your interests and passions. And that's how you'll more than likely find yourself happy in whatever career you choose."

It seemed like sound advice. After all, that's an indirect route to how I found my career, which I love. I never thought I would be a technical writer - hell, I didn't even know technical writing was a career - but here I am, managing and technical writing away. And it suits me. But I also realized that I have moved away from the writing portion of my role and more on the people management and strategy side of things. Therefore, where is my writing?

So I came back to my blog today. I had to reset my password and fiddle with my browser cookies to come back, but here I am. Likely for random, infrequent intervals of blogging, but I returned to the roots of what I love and what directed me into the career that I have. Thank you to those middle schoolers for reminding me about what I want to be when I grow up.