Finding My Passion

(c) 2012 Denise Moncrief

A few years ago (I won’t tell you how many), I hit the ripe old age of forty and thought my life was over. Why not? When the entertainment industry projects the idea of valuable womanhood to be young, ultra thin, and beautiful? I no longer felt young. I’ve never been ultrathin. (The smallest size I’ve ever worn was a six, but my appetite was off at the time. Now, one of my legs wouldn’t fit into a size zero!) And as far as beautiful goes? I’m beautiful on the inside. That’s what matters, right?

In the midst of my mid-life crisis, I was desperately searching for something to give my life meaning. I’d trained to be an accountant, but I was never going to be a partner in an accounting firm. The desire to give it all for something so…boring just wasn’t there, so I wasn’t going to reach the pinnacle of accounting success. What can I say? Accounting is not my passion. Never has been. Now it’s something I do part time to make a few bucks so I can afford to do things I’d rather do.

I’d always loved music, but there’s no venue for a middle-aged singer. By the time it appeared on the American cultural landscape, I was already too old to try out for American Idol. In my twenties, when I could have pursued the dream, I wrote a few songs, learned a few chords, and sang numerous songs with recording artists. Of course, none of them were aware of our duets. I had no idea where to begin a musical career and I was a long way from the center of the recording industry.

Maybe I played around with writing lyrics for a while because I’ve always been fascinated with the power of words. Maybe that’s why I devoured so many books, regretting the end of the story as if I’d said goodbye to a trusted friend, a dependable comforter. The right word can change more than the meaning of a sentence. It sets the tone of what’s being expressed. Whether lyrics or literature, words create moods and foster memories.

So at the ripe old age of forty, I found my passion. I’d deserted it for years, but when I searched for something to get excited about, to devote my excess energies to, I found writing again. Putting together strings of words in the hope a collection of sentences glued together into paragraphs, scenes, and chapters might create a mood and foster a memory.

So my passion is to influence the heart, mind, or soul of a reader, those avid devourers of the written word. I’m not talking about the casual reader. There are those that read and those that are readers. We know who we are.