Breakfast of Champions

At first we thought the black liquid was oil, that we’d struck it rich and that we’d be able to retire and live in leisure. We actually started writing down all the ways we’d spend the money.                         – Piccadilly Inc.; Complete the Story

My soon to be husband bought me a book on a whim. It was Complete the Story by Piccadilly Inc. This was about a month ago. As much as I appreciate any book or notebook, I was puzzled as to how this book would work for me and yet excited to use it. I do have a really bad habit of going into libraries and book stores just to smell the books. I linger in the journals and touch the covers of each of them. So actually using something I preferred to smell was a new concept.

Fast forward and the girl who helped start it all, my best friend from highschool, the girl I wrote a story with at just fifteen, passed away. In that moment I lost half of what made me what I am today with my writing. Some characters in my novels are still from the ones we made when we were so young and carefree. And then there was this past Friday where I forgot how to quit and was fired instead! How is all this not a sign from God that I am meant to be writing?

So onto the prompt above. Most of us would indeed finish that story. But as my first post and home page suggest, I am after the illusive comma for now. And in that quote above I can see the lovely use of the comma. And an apostrophe, which actually made me flinch, yet was perfectly placed. I never did like the word we’d. But the quote itself was poignant. Sometimes that quote above is close to how we plan all the steps in life.

For example: As I sit here eating the breakfast of champions, Combos and coffee, I have found myself at the awesome yet terrifying position of having nothing familiar of my old life. (And if you are asking, it is the pizza and pretzel combination my future husband left in the car.) In the last year, I have given up ten years of being a confirmed bachelorette. I have moved houses, changed my life around, had financial emergencies and now lost my job. Nothing familiar of my old life from this time last year is present. It is an incredible and terrible reality to face. I am both thrilled and confused. Directionless would be overstating it and yet understating it.

So the person above first felt that soaring chance at life. They struck oil? Fantastic! But then what did it really turn out to be? Was it oil but alas not the good kind? Did suddenly they realize that the oil well was not on their property line but just over it, where those damn neighbors who had everything and were perfect, lived? Or was it truly their oil and the good kind? And when they finally had all the money they wanted, did they indeed have everything they ever wanted?

Perhaps now I will find that the oil is rough and on the neighbor’s land. Or I will find it is really true! The oil is mine and it is good. It is up to me then to steward that into something productive instead of destructive. Throughout this blog I will post excerpts from my writings along with the pros of blogging. I hope people will find it amusing. And finally when I learn all the ways of the comma, much like the ways of the Force, I will then be able to move up the writing column and finally publish one of my many novels. But for now, I am at the first step. The beginning of my Yellow Brick Road.

I said from the beginning that this blog is my journey into the unknown. And I also invited anyone who wished to come along, to join me. We might be about the comma today, but tomorrow I could be regretting the combos for breakfast. I merely am wishing for company and maybe a chuckle or two as I try to erase the rainbows and butterflies people expect me to want, and replace it with the rough around the edges bumblebee that bumps into things more than not.