Once and For All
I remember the exact moment, location, time of day, and who I was with when I knew I was going to be a writer.
Let me back up.
I always knew I was going to be a writer. The first moment of awareness was in fourth grade when Mrs. Cordova said a story I wrote was very creative.
I knew then I liked to write, and that it came easy to me. Fast forward through my pre-college education, and I found myself welcoming long essays, relishing in creative writing assignments, loving deadlines and producing my best work in the hours before them. In ninth grade, Mrs. Capshaw stoked my passion by telling me I needed to keep going.
But it was during my college years in the summer of 1998, when it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.
I was in Mexico at the time with Abe, one of my closest fraternity brothers from college. He and I had been sharing an apartment in Oaxaca City where we were studying most of the summer. Our return trip to the US included a stopover in Mexico City to visit our other fraternity brother, Rodolfo, one of my best friends then, and now.
It was August, and we were young guys living as though there was no tomorrow. At night we ate tacos al pastor from street vendors, then later “stepped into the madness” of Mexico City night clubs. During the daytime, we slept it off like vampires, adding the local potions of friendly shamans as the cure to our crudo.
One of those afternoons, Rodolfo drove us to Texcoco, outside the city, to visit his friend from high school. On the way out of the valley, my calling called me loud and clear. My gift had always been writing, and there in Rodolfo’s Jeep Wagoneer in the valley of Mexico, I embraced it una vez por todas.
Once and for all.
Abe and Rodolfo knew none of it. There were no announcements or fireworks. It was simply the acknowledgement in my head that I was officially choosing the writer’s life.
And so, here I am, over twenty years since that summer when I had my awakening. Here I am still at this art, and here I am on this exact day, publishing my first book.
I may not be that young man I once was, but he still resides in me, and I would like to thank him for his epiphany that day.
Though the life is short and the craft so hard to master, as Hippocrates once said, I’m ever blessed I’m able to live again and again and again every time I write a page.
◊♦◊
Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash