So I did the the thing…the one I talked about in my last post. I finished my last residency and submitted my final portfolio. I have a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.
This is my amazing and talented cohort on the night of the residency closing banquet where we had an unofficial graduation ceremony. A few of us will walk at the official one this spring.
Speaking of spring or the absence thereof, I came home to some bitter cold and snow. All I wanted to do was curl up in a warm house and soak in the previous week.
No chance of that. Instead, I had to break ice in the water trough, get the tank heater working, and snuggle my pasture gals in their heavy blankets. Such is life with horses.
The weather has moderated for now, giving me time to reflect not only on this residency, but on the past eighteen months. I remember being so scared driving up to my first one, my heart aching for it to be over so I could return back home to my family. A week later that ache turned to hope and excitement. Although I’ve had some stretches of self-doubt that ranged from lingering to crippling since then, my experience at Wilkes University gave me the confidence to embrace what I’ve always known: I am a writer.
There, I said it — this time without choking on the words, I might add.
I am a writer . 
Saying this is not a measure of success as prescribed by the publishing world. It is not legitimatized by an agent, a book deal, or even a graduate degree. It is the essence of who you are at your core, what defines you.
Friends, if you have a story to tell and that story won’t rest until your fingers tap a keyboard or guide a pen across paper, if excitement rises in you when you see a blank page in a notebook or journal, if a place or conversation sparks your imagination and populates it with characters whose lives become as important as your own — listen to me. You are a writer.
Say it. I am a writer.
Now write.