Friendship

Ten Years of Stories: An Anniversary Series

/ Katie / 6 Comments

I’ve been following Annie over at Tales of a Family for a long time. And this year marks ten years of blogging for both of us. So to celebrate, we decided to collaborate and work on a series together. It’s been fun, and will continue to be fun as we explore our milestones and get to know our journeys a little better together. She’s posted this Part One over on her blog, and I’m sharing it, as well! They’ll be a little different from each other, because we’re different people, but we both share a love of stories, family, home, and history. Please give her a follow, and enjoy this series as we post every other Saturday!

MEET THE WRITERS

Annie, Tales of a Family

The Milestone

Ten years ago, I stared at a blank page with a heart full of stories, not knowing where this journey might take me. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved the quiet magic of writing, the way it guides me to gather up the pieces of family tales and history and create family stories. Tales of a Family: Finding My Home became more than a collection of memories; it became a place where my own voice settled in alongside the voices of the women who came before me. 

Their love and encouragement influenced me and touched my life in more ways than I could have ever imagined, and I think of them often, especially when I write. They gently reminded me of the value of our history, the comfort of belonging, and the importance of sharing. 

And over time, as my blog grew, I am grateful to my readers, family, and friends who quietly walked beside me on this journey. Your loving encouragement has carried me through this adventure, page by page. This ten-year milestone isn’t just a number. It feels like coming home again and again, to a life shaped by stories, laughter, and the unexpected beauty found in everyday moments, the beginning of a new journey I never saw coming.

Annie’s Part One: Why We Started 

From a young age, I have always loved to write. I kept journals, wrote poetry, scribbled a few short stories, and even tried my hand at music. Words have always been a part of me, but I never really truly settled into writing until I went to college. 

While working on my English major, I began to find my voice and a real outlet for my writing. I had poetry published in college magazines and chapbooks, articles published in the college newspaper, and an article published in a collegiate book after attending a college conference that included professors from Ivy League schools. During my senior year, I was one of only seven students invited to share my poetry with faculty and students, and I was the only student not currently pursuing a master’s degree. 

That experience should have given me the courage to keep going, and for a while I dreamed of doing just that. But as the years passed, everyday responsibilities slowly moved to the front of my life, while my writing quietly slipped into the background.

After graduation, I worked for five years in the prison system, teaching mainly General Education and Adult Basic Education courses. Later, I found a teaching job at a middle school in a semi-rural community in Colorado. For the past 22 years, I have taught language arts, transitional reading, creative writing, and humanities. I love my job, and I have spent much of my life helping my students find their own voices as they create and write.

During my transition, somewhere deep inside, my own stories kept waiting.

One summer ten years ago, an old back injury put me on bed rest. Suddenly, I had time, more than I wanted, to be honest. But in that stillness, I began writing again. And it felt like an old friend had returned.

And yes, I can type while lying flat on my back! I’m talented that way.

As I rested and recovered, family stories started tugging at me. I thought about the memories passed down through the women in my family, the old tales, the bits of history, the funny moments, the heartbreaks, and the everyday pieces of life that might disappear if no one wrote them down. And I knew I needed to save them.

That is how my blog, Tales of a Family: Finding My Way Home, began.

At first, those stories were simple, heartfelt, and rooted in memory. Some came from family history, some from genealogy research, and others from the voices of loved ones who shaped my life. I wanted to preserve those stories, not only for myself but also for my daughter, my grandchildren, my family, and anyone else who understood the deep pull of family, memory, and belonging.

What I did not understand then that starting a blog would become more than a way to save family history. It would become a doorway back to myself. Page after page, story after story, I began to remember who I was as a writer. And in many ways, that unexpected journey began with one long summer, one old injury, and one blank page waiting for me to begin once again.

Katie, A Virginia Writer’s Diary

That’s me, and you’re here!

The Milestone

Blogging can be a lonely pastime. Or, it can connect you with other creators who inspire you, support you, and encourage you. You’ll read their stuff, comment, get to know them and root for them. And you’ll wonder sometimes, is anyone out there reading my stuff? Should I keep writing and posting? And even though you feel uncertain, you will, because it means something to you, and because you love it. You’ll keep putting your stories out there, sharing your world, and one day you’ll look up and realize it’s been ten years.

Ten years of blogging, and of building your community of writers and readers.

They say tin for ten years, in marriage. But as far as we know, there is no standard gift for ten years of blogging. So, we made one.

When we realized we’d both been at this for a decade, we decided to collaborate and write a series. Over the next several weeks, we’ll be looking back together on our ten years – why we started, what we’ve learned, our best posts and memories. It’s going to be fun, and we’ll learn a lot and hopefully inspire some of our other creator friends and colleagues to reflect on their own journeys.

So enjoy this introduction, and get to know us, Annie and Katie, two writers who value family, home, history, and stories, and who can’t wait to share that love with you.  

Katie’s Part One: Why We Started

I started A Virginia Writer’s Diary back in 2016 when I was in a major transition.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I got a degree in literature and started my working life as a children’s librarian. But we don’t always end up where we expect, and through a series of unexpected moves and turns and decisions of various hiring managers, I found myself instead working in corporate Human Resources. I stayed in that field for almost a decade, and it was killing me. Truly, it was not where I was meant to be, and I think my soul was rebelling.

So I quit. Looking back, it’s the second-best decision I’ve ever made. (Having Lucy, my smart and brave and spunky and mischievous toddler is the best. Marrying Graham, who has supported me every day of our seventeen years together, also ranks pretty high. But I digress.)

I decided to try my hand at writing a novel for a year. I started my blog as a way to just write something, to practice and to keep at it and to hold myself accountable. I wanted to feel connected to myself and my work. And then I took a break for a while. Something just wasn’t working, writing-wise, and Graham and I used that time to find and purchase a 200-year-old home and start building a life out in the countryside. I came back to WordPress in 2020. That’s when I started with short stories and the poems, and I feel like that’s when I really came alive as a writer.

Graham and I have since sold that house, and now my family lives in coastal Virginia and I’m learning to be a beach person. We’ll see how A Virginia Writer’s Diary evolves in this new place, but I know that no matter what, and despite the busy-ness of mom life, I will always keep writing.

Join us in two weeks to read more!

And thank you for reading!

Two Friendship Tanka (or, Poetry Challenges Are Fun and You Should Participate, Too!)

/ Katie / 11 Comments

It’s been a while since I participated in one of Rebecca’s poetry challenges over at Fake Flamenco, and I’m excited to get back to it. This month’s challenge is to write a tanka poem about a friend or companion animal. And you know how I feel about friendship. 😊 So here are my contributions, because it seems like I can never write just one.   

Today, I called you
just to say hello and chat
about life and stuff.
It was a small moment, but
those small moments make a life.

Wherever we go
together, that’s home for me.
Home isn’t a place,
see, because instead it’s love
that makes a home in our hearts.

If you’d like to participate, as well, you’ve got until Sunday, February 5th. I think you should! I always enjoy these, and reading everyone’s poems is definitely the best part.

Two Friendship Pareado Poems

/ Katie / 14 Comments

Another one for the poetry challenge over at Fake Flamenco!

The challenge for February is to write a pareado with the theme of friendship. Well, I’d never written a pareado before, and y’all, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be! But friendship certainly has a place in my heart, what with the Better Friendships podcast that I co-host with one of my besties. So, even though it was difficult, I had to give it a try. The results?

A true friend is a guiding star
who lights the way even from afar.

No one walks life’s path alone
who has a friend in heart or home.

…Not my best work. But it was still super fun! And if you want to participate, the challenge is open until February 12th.

Making a Memory (A Poem)

/ Katie / 8 Comments

“It was a beautiful wedding, my friend,”
I say, as I work to remove bobby pins.
Her hair falls around my hands
in tendrils, finally flowing and free,
and I add, “I’m glad to be here.”
A weekend a year in the making,
give or take, and three different locations,
and that’s all I can think to say.
I’m good with words at the wrong moments,
it seems. But I know this one
I’ll remember, regardless,
as the end of the happy (happiest) day
when my friend married her best friend
by the water in Maryland.

Old Friends (A Short Story)

/ Katie / 12 Comments

The game was Two Truths and a Lie. The players, my best friend, Michelle, and me. The stakes: one bag of tropical-flavored Skittles.

We’d settled into the old back yard treehouse at a little after 10:00, just after peak lightning bug hour, and just before the moon crested the treetops.

It was after midnight now. We were down two bottles of Coke, one slice of the coconut cake we’d made together earlier in the day, and one shoe, which had fallen just after we’d climbed up, and which we were too lazy to retrieve. I’d never minded going barefoot.

Between bites of barbecue chips, I said, “You know I know everything about you, right? Like, this will not be a challenge.”

“Then you know I am full of surprises,” she answered.

That was true.

“You also know that I am allergic to bananas, and that I am secretly a pop star living a double life because I am super talented but also crave normalcy.”

“Too easy,” I laughed. “You’re allergic to strawberries.”

“So you acknowledge my superstardom, then?” She held her chin high, and then she laughed, too.

“That, my friend, is the plot of Hannah Montana, which we are much too old for, and I’m claiming all the Skittles for myself, since you don’t want to play fair.”

We sat in silence after that, listening to the rhythmic sounds of a summer night. Crickets, little frogs, and somewhere in the distance, revving engines and a police siren.

“That’ll be the kids racing down Main Street again,” Michelle said. “Jeez, how many of them are there?”

My mother had told us last night that racing had only recently become a problem in town, but that there also seemed to be an endless supply of foolhardy teenagers with an irrational need to win a stupid game with no actual prizes. Except maybe an arrest record.

“Can’t be that many. There aren’t that many kids in this town.”

That was also true.

“When did we get old?”

“You shut your mouth,” Michelle snorted, and punched the side of my arm. “I have never looked better.”

“Yes, the gray really brings out your eyes,” I told her.

“And the laugh lines make you look like Emma Thompson,” she told me, “but better.”

“Well, that’s good, because Botox terrifies me.”

“And I’m way too lazy for hair dye.”

Thirty-five years we’d been friends. Since elementary school, when Michelle had decided she liked me because of the unicorn on my shirt. I’d liked her because she had pink, hand-drawn scribbles on her tennis shoes. Our friendship had developed from there, mostly against the backdrop of the treehouse. It was our refuge, our secret base, and occasionally, where we’d stashed the beer and cigarettes and other sneaky teenager things. I was certain if we looked now, we’d probably find something tucked away, waiting for us.  

Michelle’s father was a doctor, and her parents had put her through an ugly, acrimonious divorce when we were in high school. It was around that time she’d started spending most of her nights at my house, and we’d gone from best friends to near sisters.

“I feel safe here,” she’d told me, one night around Christmas when we were seventeen, standing in the bathroom taking off our makeup. “This feels like what life should be.”

“This house?” I’d asked.

“No, dummy. This friendship.”

We’d slept that night in the treehouse, under a heavy blanket my parents had brought home from Greece before I was born. Michelle stole that blanket a year later, when we left for college.

“Your mom would want me to have it,” she’d said.

And she was probably right, because my mother hadn’t even mentioned it was missing.

As we’d gotten older, we’d left town, we’d left boyfriends, she’d left college early to paint and I’d left a string of unfulfilling jobs, but we’d never left each other.

“You’re stuck with me and my wrinkles,” I told her, back in the moment. “And I’m stuck with heartburn.” I rubbed four fingers flat against my chest. I could almost feel the acid bubbling. “God, why did we think this was a good idea?”

Michelle pulled a couple of Tums out of her pocket and handed them to me.

“Do you just carry those with you?”

“Yep,” she said. “You don’t?”

“I will now,” I said.

“We thought this was a good idea,” she said, “because tomorrow you turn forty-five, which means you’re practically fifty, which means you’re 75% on your way to death, which means you should eat the damn cake.”

“I think you did your math wrong,” I said.

“I still think you should eat the cake.”

“Noted,” I said. “Consider it done. Tomorrow. I’m not crawling down that ladder in the dark.”

We made a point of celebrating our birthdays together, mine in summer and Michelle’s in October. We hadn’t spent a birthday apart in years. Last year, for Michelle’s, we’d gone to Vegas. This year, for mine, I wanted something a little more simple.

“Fiji,” she’d complained. “We could have gone to Fiji, or anywhere else.”

“I know,” I’d replied, “but it’ll be nice to see my parents and just relax. Low-key doesn’t mean bad.”

“You just wait,” she’d warned me. “You’ll wish you’d done something bigger.”

“We can go to Fiji next year,” I’d said. “Or when I turn fifty. Or when you turn fifty.”

“I claim Fiji, then” she’d said.

And knowing Michelle, she was already making plans.

“I broke my arm in third grade,” I said, as I popped open the Skittles and poured a generous helping into my palm. “And I don’t really like people most of the time.”

“I think both of those things are true,” Michelle said. “Or did you actually break you arm in second grade?”

“Thanks for coming,” I said to her, “even though it’s boring.”

“Well, thanks for existing,” she answered, “even though you probably have better things to do.”

I looked around the treehouse, at our blanket nest and the pile of wrappers and bottles we were in the process of creating, just like old times, and at Michelle.

“Nah,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything better than this, right now.”

“That,” Michelle said, “is actually, surprisingly, very true.”

************

Thank you for reading! This is the sixth of twelve stories I’ll write as part of my 2021 Short Story Challenge. Twelve months, twelve stories, and the theme this year is: Home.

Here are the first five stories, if you’d like to read them: 

The Roads

This Place

Talk Out the Fire

Quiet Neighbors

The Return

And if you want to join in the fun, here’s more information. I hope you do! But just reading is good, too, and I’m glad you’re here!

The next story will be posted at the end of July.

Introducing: The Better Friendships Podcast!

/ Katie / 9 Comments

I am so excited to share this announcement with all of you! I’ve been working on this project with a very good, very talented, very smart and fun and amazing friend since the summer, and tomorrow, it finally launches.

Here’s some information from our website on what it’s all about:

Have you ever struggled to stay connected to your friends? Have you had a friend breakup? On the other hand, have you ever met someone and just clicked immediately? Or enjoyed a years-long friendship that makes you feel whole?

Friendships are hard work, and research has shown that strong friendships make women happier, healthier, and more successful. But research – and our own personal experience – also indicates that many women struggle to make and keep close friends. We see depictions of mean girls on TV and in movies, we read about toxic female friendships in some of today’s most popular fiction, and there are countless self-help books dedicated to building and maintaining friendships. (We’ve read lots of them.)

Clearly, friendship is important to women, and we believe that all women deserve positive, supportive friendships that enrich their lives and raise them up. We believe in better friendships! And we want to help you build them. Join us every other Tuesday for Better Friendships.

If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, or if you know someone who would be, then please tune in tomorrow, January 5th, for the very first episode of Better Friendships! You can find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. In the meantime, check out our website, our Facebook page, and find us on Instagram  at @better_friendships.

Let’s be friends, y’all!