Writing about Love at 50

Hola Community!

I know it's been a minute since I've written a blog FOR ME! Let me tell you--your girl turned 50! I know--been celebrating apparently since January because it's been that long since you heard from me--La Mujer, not the nonprofit leader, not that consultant... tu sabes la poeta...

Most of you know by now that I'm the founder of a nonprofit: Midwest Mujeres!

And I'm a published author and parent and daughter and partner.

All of these roles keep me super busy.

When I saw that I haven't written anything since Jan!! I was like NOOOOO!

My blogging is mainly on LinkedIn.

Why?

Because I have found that it helps our mission of Midwest Mujeres to build credibility and support for the women and for the organization .

Here is a recent blog that I did on LinkedIn.

If you haven't followed me there---> here is that link: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/nonprofit-latina-leadership-7168397408358293504/

Another development: I'm writing my second book and becoming a coach!!

I know! I'm doing all of the things!

I know it sounds like roses in my life... But I get rejected. A lot by people, by this state, by friends, or old friends. Even by my own father.

As a writer, you get rejected a lot. As a poet, you get rejected a lot.

One day, I was hanging out in my yard, and I looked at the flowers in bloom.... and I wrote it all out... how I've learned to live with it... and hold it and be okay with it...

I hug the hole until I become whole

I understand now that I’m the one who drew the line, but all I wanted was for you to cross it and carry me over

Like any father would help their daughter carry them over something that they couldn’t do alone 

like how a father will investigate a bruise, make sure that the bone wasn’t broken

I write, and I write in circles around this hole

I make up large terrains. I build context, witty comebacks, political observations, rebellious dogma, idealistic dreams, fanciful declarations

I eat words

I pierce letters

I enjoy every vowel and consonant

I munch on sentences

 I devour paragraphs upon paragraphs and lay to waste pages and chapters and books, and none give me the answer to the solitude. I need to fill the hole, but now I’m old and I’m used to this hole

 I’m so very used to this gaping hole, and today--instead of building a fortitude around it, I decide to look inside and look at its shape, and the depth of this hole

Although this hole is as deep as my root, all the way to the beginning of my very stem

I somehow continue to grow and push out to the front and reach for that sunlight and enjoy the air

 the raindrops 

the frozen winters and moist and thawed springs

to the cool breezes of hot summers

All of these seasons that I have lived with this hole

And somehow it’s become very much part of who I am

with this invisible hole

If you were to look at all of what I write, I never mention them

I never mentioned you

Dad, I don’t tell them about you

I don’t tell anyone about you

You represent something that’s not part of my leadership

My leadership is all about being included and belonging

The very people who let me live with this hole, who saw it

It didn’t matter if I had it or not; they met me with the hole, and they knew even though I didn’t talk about it

They knew it was there

And they didn’t care…

They showed me what love is

Support Me and Buy My Book! <3