My Blank Page

The blank page. There is something about the white clean slate of if all. There is no beginning or ending, no anger or happiness, just the possibilities.

What does one do with it, create from it?

A blank slate can be freeing, a rebirth, a new start.

It contains the fear of possibilities or endlessness.

I think people become too sedate and flow with the words from others. They let other people write on their blank page and because it has words on it they follow it like it was written in stone.

For years I fell into that trap. I would turn the page to stare at the whiteness of possibilities, but before I could put pen to paper, someone had written on it.

My page filled with words and I followed it, believed in it, but they were not my words. It would take a long time before I realized they were not my ideas.

They sounded like me or some paler version of me, but they were not mine.

Time had passed and the message changed ever so slightly, unnoticeablely until eventually, I believed the thoughts were mine.

I guess to some extent they were because I allowed them to be. It was a slow realization that those words which were not mine changed and deviated from the path I envisioned for myself. It was the day I realized that I was not the author of my life that gave me back my power.

The ghost writer had no power over me.

It was a cold hard shock. How could this writer let someone else write for her?

It is easier to read than to write. What takes one person a day to read a novel, takes years for the novelist to write — to craft. Words chosen will be swapped out for more accurate ones, for more eloquent, subtle ones, more colorful ones. The slight word changes drastically impact the meaning.

It it the difference between choosing a new path or a slightly overgrown one. To stand on your own two feet or to continue in a fog thinking the feet you put one foot in front of the other are yours.

When you stop reading, take a breath, and look up you may realize that you too are not the author of your life. If this happens what you do?

Do you drop your head and continue reading or do you take the pen away from the ghost writer and find a quiet place to write?

For me, I chose the latter. I took the pen back, found a nice quiet place to write, and then set pen to paper. Today these words are my own. The whiteness before me hold many great possibilities.

I am a great friend, hugely popular writer, I travel as I want on my own terms. I am free to travel about the world and document what I see and hear.

Why? Because that is what I chose to be, me and no one else.

What will you write on your blank page?

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