I Am A Writer

By Beth Alexander Walsh

My name is Beth and I am a writer.

While this statement doesn't propel me out of a dark closet, or have me searching for a twelve step program, I reveal it with some trepidation. Sharing with strangers, family and friends that you are a writer, launches countless questions tinged with judgment, all without the benefit of reading your work! Those who know me best, of course, have been supportive; encouraging me to expand my writing horizons. Others remark, in a head-patting condescending tone, “Isn't that nice”, as if to say: you are the cutest thing ever for wanting to write. Some are even slightly hostile, pronouncing your goals unrealistic. Strangers of course just want to know if you have been published or received a paycheck. 

My personal truth, I have come to realize, is that I have always been a writer.

In the third grade, when other children were passing in their two page essays, I would deliver a ten page short story. My teacher was supportive of this most of the time. The next year, our class put on an entire play based on my rewritten lyrics to “Puff the Magic Dragon”, (my apologies to Peter, Paul and Mary). When girls in junior high discussed what they wanted to be when they grew up, most of their answers were a nurse, a veterinarian, and Mrs. Scott Baio. My goal was to be the next Erma Bombeck!

High School dreams were in the form of poetry and song lyrics, while the reality of becoming an adult loomed ahead. I dropped the writing ball in my college years and promptly forgot who I was by majoring in business management. That choice was made for all the wrong reasons and I never completed my degree.

 I did not write purposefully for many years, caring instead for three small children and a mother suffering from Alzheimer's. There was a lot of soul searching during that period, and a lot of reading from Oprah's Book Club list. My writing mostly consisted of emails to my closest friends. I am forever grateful for those women during that time and am happy I had the foresight to save those emails, as one of those friends is no longer with us. I look back at her words on occasion, just to hear her voice again.

Words are powerful. They can convey pain and misery, joy and triumph, and every emotion of the human condition. Nations have risen and fallen on the words of their leaders. They can inspire hate as well as love. To those close to you, the right words can mean everything. So here I am, in my fiftieth year, ready to share my words. I cannot guarantee you will always like what I have to say, but I hope you appreciate my compulsion to share, along with my fellow Winter Street colleagues, because after all...I am a writer.