Passion of the Housewife

For as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed writing and telling stories.

I’m not sure why, but storytelling has just always been a passion of mine.

Maybe it’s because I love getting attention …

Maybe it’s because I need an emotional outlet…

Maybe it’s because I come from a family who has always enjoyed sitting down and telling (and retelling) stories…

Who knows, but from the time I was a child, in grade school even, I used to keep a diary, write (bad) poetry, and of course, tell stories.

I recently found a box in the basement my husband had labeled “Susan’s Junk,” and inside I was surprised to find what I would have more aptly labeled, “Susan’s Treasures.”

There was a scrapbook my Mom kept of my artwork all the way back to Pre-K.  I might mention that I have never (as in ever), excelled in art.  This is similar to what I could sketch now if I tried my very best.  It’s a self-portrait from 1983 (age 5) when I was obsessed with The Muppets.

This isn’t about my art though; and clearly art was never going to be my creative outlet anyway.  What I did find was a few old journals, my favorites being the ones from high school where the teenaged angst was oh-so-palpable.  There was notebooks full of short stories, poems and the like from about 7th grade all the way up until about eleven years ago.

Reading through the old pages, I was flooded with feelings and memories of my younger years.

There was such passion in the pages.

Even though I can’t draw a picture with a pen, I used words to paint a picture of the emotions of that moment.

Love, anger, joy, sadness, happiness, confusion….it was all right there.

Most of these words have never been shared with anyone else, but they were always written more for me anyway.  But as I flipped through the pages, I wondered when I stopped writing like this…

I’ve shared my real life stories here, but I haven’t written any fiction in years.

And what about the poetry?  Oh, it was bad too, and I know it, but it was written in way that allowed me to still feel the emotions of the time again.  When was the last time I felt so strongly about something that I captured it in prose?  I remember writing a poem for the kids when each was born, but after that, was there really nothing that made me feel so strongly?  Where does my passion lie now?

Then I remembered.

I did write a few poems recently.

They were pretty terrible, and I wrote them to be funny, but underneath I can feel it.

The hopelessness….

The frustration…..

The hate….

And there’s more…

I found my passion…

And remember, passion has several meanings in the English language, and most times we associate it with sexual desire or love.  However, passion can also be defined as any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, such as love or hate.…

And I am so damn passionate about the laundry…

Where’s your passion?  What would you write bad poetry about?