I’ve written about my life from the time I was twenty-nine years old until my father died when I was about forty-five.  I’m now sixty-seven, another birthday approaches and I can clearly see what has been happening since my father passed.  My children have grown, they left home at eighteen to go college and marriage.  They have lives of their own and have not come back home. I have not really dated since Dad died. I have concentrated more on getting my own life in order, getting my finances in order and becoming financially stable.  A real first for me, in fact, a very reassuring and comforting feeling for me. I finally feel secure in my living situation.

I was a struggling artist in the beginning.  No one had ever heard of a web designer, but eventually and over time, people realized that the Internet was not a fad. All my instincts about the future of technology came to fruition, everything that I knew would happen, happened and it’s continuing as I knew it would. Now, I prepare for the next chapter in my life – retirement.  I plan on retiring at seventy from the corporate world. However, that does not mean I will stop working.  I just can’t see it. Living alone, living the life I live in exploration and curiosity prevents me from just sitting back and not pursuing another endeavor.  Writing has always been in my life, writing short stories when I was child, doing technical writing as a chemist, technical writing during Y2K, technical writing as a contractor, technical writing as a web designer, now I’m going full circle and back to writing short stories again. Some fiction, some not. I like writing about my travels, perhaps I will be a travel writer when I grow up.  I guess I haven’t yet decided what I want to be when I grow up, whether I ever will know, I don’t know.  There’s just too much out there I want to do, too much I want to see and too many things that evoke too much thought in my head that I have to express.

The one part of my life that does need to be expanded on now is my social life.  Being an introvert makes it a little difficult for me to put myself out there.  However, just as I need to encourage myself to travel solo and go on my adventures.  I need to learn how to take this adventure in relationships.  I need to learn that although my past relationships have not proven to have the best track record; that perhaps I am in a better place now, not only financially, physically, emotionally, but intellectually to enter a relationship that is truly one that fits my life and my heart.  One that will bring into my life  the partner that will understand me better, because I understand myself better than I ever have.  I know exactly who I am, what I want, what I need, what my flaws are and what kind of life I want to live.  I have accepted who I am. I’m no longer struggling with my identity.  I am no one’s daughter, wife, mother, sister, niece.  I am me – only me.  I can be a friend, a very loyal friend. I can be a very loving and faithful lover to the right person, but most of all when someone knows me they know I am authentic.

The journey of discovery of self has taken me sixty-seven years.  It has had many missteps, mistakes, and twists and turns. I have read self-help books, gone to psychiatrists, been a counselor, been a lay minister, studied the bible, studied yoga and meditation.  Eventually, after all this, you decide to make the journey yours-you customize it.  You take a bit of what works from everything your read, see, hear, and experience and learn from it.  I have done this.  I believe I have taken the best from all the best teachers and have tried to apply it to my life and hope to continue to apply it to my life. I’ve learned from my mistakes.  I have found peace in my life, I try to live with mindfulness in living in the forefront of my daily living. I try to experience new things, I think if I stop, that’s when I will get old, physically and mentally.  Life is to be lived as a participant, not a spectator.

So, friends, keep watching and reading, the platinum dragon is flying high in the sky searching for new adventures, loves, and stories to write.  In the meantime, Netdancer’s Photography will stay busy with my other obsession, photography, catching the world through my lens.