If You Could Have Any Job What Would It Be?

Note:  Sorry this is late. It was a crazy week and today was the first spare moment I had to sit down and write. Hope you enjoy! ~Susan 

I have recently re-entered the workforce after nearly twenty-one years as a stay-at-home mom. The experience has been surreal, to say the least. I've traded the drama of temper tantrums and poopy diapers for co-worker drama and mile-long to-do lists.

I'm interning – trying to cram 300 hours of work into a six-week time frame. If you do the math, you realize I'm undertaking a mountain of work. Lucky for me, the job of stay-at-home mom is more of a twenty-hour per day job, so I'm surviving just fine.

At my first staff meeting as an intern, the boss asked us, “If you could have any job, what would it be?” Surprisingly, of the 15 employees present, only one person said they were doing their dream job. I mentioned something like S.W.A.T., which elicited many horrified, or shocked stares and several comments on how I'll probably shoot someone. I was never good at answering unexpected questions.

Long after the meeting ended, I mulled that question over. What was my dream job? Motherhood was always my first pick, and I was lucky enough to do it for more than twenty years. But circumstances changed and I was compelled to return to the work force.

Is being an addictions counselor what I really want to do for the next several decades of my life? Could I make it as a writer? How about focusing all of my energy on the mystery game business my parents left me? I could always concentrate of furthering the non-profit business I'd considered starting, or maybe turn my web design hobby into something more full time. What is my dream job? Which option will make me happiest?

After much contemplation, I realized that I am in my dream job. Addictions studies fascinates me, and the idea of helping others to become better people excites me. Everything else (aside from writing) has been a time filler as I've dabbled here and there in various activities trying to find my passion.

In the past couple of weeks, I've slowly emptied my plate, leaving only writing. It will be my way of unplugging from the world and clearing my mind after a long day of domestic and professional drama.

I'm preparing for another week of mind bogglingly long work days, but this time with a smile on my face. I'm doing what I want to do and living the life I want to live. What more can a person ask for?

New Motto

Write without fear!

Edit without mercy!

This was the thought from my last ANWA Chapter meeting.
My new motto.

Just Wanted to Share

by Terri Wagner

The time for "the talk" has come. I am basing it on this wonderful song by Carmen This Blood that I really love. The Savior is our advocate with the Father. Watching Intervention (as I have mentioned before) has given such a perspective of addiction but also of advocacy. Most of the people who prepare the family for the intervention process are ex addicts themselves. They warn the family of just what the addict will do. These people seem at times very harsh and unsympathetic. That is just wrong. They know the addict inside and out because they have walked that path. I love that though the families have a hard time with the process, the interventionist is always right.

Our Savior came to earth as a mortal being so He could experience what we do. Do not ask me to explain how He processed all of this. I only know and understand that He did. He loved, hated, despaired, went through all of the human emotions. And He did it to be an advocate for us. One definition I read from Sister Okazaki Lighten Up was an advocate stands with us in front of the judge. I always imagine the Savior doing the same thing for us. He knows, He understands on levels we may yet to understand ourselves. Much like the ones on the TV show. Those ex addicts really comprehend what is going on and stand ready to do battle for the family and ultimately the addict. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. Our Savior does the same thing for us only more perfectly, more lovingly, and always. That's what I came up with. Keep your fingers crossed I can do this!!!

Thoughts that stick with you

by Cassie Shiels

As writers we have ideas running in and out of our brain like a busy railway station. Some of the ideas hang out for a while, others seem to be trying to catch an express train and are fleeting. Some are frequent visitors of our railway station brain and keep coming back in a way we almost feel haunted. Others come back all the time and we can hardly wait to see them. Its these last two that I feel we usually turn into books.

The ideas that haunt us, because they will be hard to write, are different then what we usually write, or scare us to write, just don't go away. I have a story like this. I thought of it my senior year in high school. Now still almost 10 years later it still comes and visits me at my railway station of a brain. It waves, reminds me that its there, and issues the warning that it will be written and will continue visiting until it has. Then it gets on its train and goes wherever ideas go until they visit again.

I do have lots of ideas I am so happy to see, those are the books I can't wait to write, but because of life they haven't been written yet, or are in various pieces. They are exited to see me and just as impatient to be written as I am to write them. I find myself having to reassure these ideas I haven't forgotten them before they catch their train. I know they will keep coming back too.

Its these ideas that stick with you, that we need to make sure we write, even the ones that haunt us. At our ANWA writing group this month the idea that stood out to me was the idea that if we don't like the idea, it will be hard to get others to like the idea. Or if we can't get excited about or story then how do we expect others to get excited about it too?

If you are trying to figure out what idea to write first or If you are unsure about your list of story ideas, look at the ones that stick with you. The ones that just won't go away. Apparently they have a compelling reason to be written, or else they would be taking the express train out of your brain.