Krystal is not only an awesome writer (I am loving Wilde's Fire--the first book in her trilogy), but she's also a really sweet girl. Be sure to pop over to her site, enter her blogfest, take a look at her books and tell her congrats!!
And...before I get started on my entry, I'd like to say that this post did not turn out the way it was supposed to. I meant to write some lighthearted fun story about some crazy thing I did as a kid. But then I started thinking about all those crazy times and this is what came out instead....
I have had many wild moments in my life, especially in my youth. In trying to decide what to write about my mind counted down a list of stuff.
The first time I ran away from home. I made it all the way from New Jersey to Maryland. I was a whopping fourteen years old.
The summer I spent in juvie I was fifteen (that was also the summer I met my husband in that same charming facility)
The summer I spent living in the laundry room of an apartment building? I was sixteen that year.
Or maybe I should tell about the time me and my best friend hitch-hiked all the way from New Jersey to Florida on a whim? That was a couple months after I turned seventeen.
All very wild times. Now it's like looking back on another lifetime. Thank GOD my kids are nothing like I was. Although, in my defense, my kids haven't had a reason to be the way I was. I was definitely a product of my upbringing. And my entire teenage years were crazy. I spent most of them bouncing around to different group homes, foster homes...the street. Here and there and everywhere.
At the time I had this crazy, drug-fueled, sad, wild, amazing, exhilarating, depressing, horrible, unbelievable life. I spent most of it hating myself.
And I never thought I'd overcome any of it. And it could have gone so many other ways. But it didn't. I did overcome it. I married the guy I met in juvie and we rehabilitated each other. We raised four beautiful, amazing kids. We found something in each other that a lot of people spend their whole lives looking for. And we held onto it with both hands.
From the vantage point of adulthood, it all happened how it was supposed to. This was the life I was meant to live. Every story in me is shaped by that insane, crazy, wounded kid I used to be. I write stories about other worlds and magic and adventure and love--but in each one of those fantasies, I leave pieces of the truth. Of myself. Of who I am and who I used to be.
When I write, I don't try to put a theme in...but, when the books are done, the themes are always the same. Love is worth any sacrifice. Perseverance will get you far. People are not always what they seem to be--you have to look past the surface.
And one of my biggest dreams is that someday some kid...some screwed-up, wild, crazy kid will read something I wrote and some part of them will recognize a kindred spirit and believe that things can get better.
And if I could do that--if I could give a kid hope, or inspiration or the desire to keep trying for even one more day...if I could do any of that then-- in a lifetime of wild moments--that would be the wildest one of all.
