When I was ten, I got a typewriter for Christmas.
Odd, you say? Not to me. Well, maybe the fact that I also got the powder blue “Country Girl” bike, complete with finders and a banana seat, helped that year… (see it there on the left?).
My dad found a somewhat antique and working Underwood Leader from the 1930s.
Growing up, I was the youngest of four by over 6 years and an only child by the time I was 10, with everyone going to college and moving out on their own. We lived out in the middle of nowhere (so it seemed as a child) and there were no neighborhood kids…nary a one. So, I spent a lot of time playing alone…playing make believe.
But it wasn’t Nurse or Teacher…or even Mommy. It was Office. Yes, complete with a company name and a date stamp (…I somehow acquired from my father’s real office). I hollowed out a corner in the downstairs basement, surrounded by a stand up piano, storage boxes and old printing presses.
It was perfect.
My company was called “The & Sign”. Don’t know why…don’t even remember what services I offered. I was happy just typing up super-official documents and counting all the nickels in my petty cash (I collected them because they were just like my name…get it?).
Maybe it was my self-employed dad’s influence, maybe its was always a part of my propensity and personality, maybe it was destiny. But despite temporary distractions along the way, I somehow ended up doing what I loved from the start…communicating, entrepreneuring, creating.
It now sits on my desk, next to my Mac Book Pro…a link to the past…my past.
As I mother my own children, I’m now at the stage where I sit and wonder…what will they become? Will they do what’s right and good? Will they be happy? I pray I foster, encourage, expose and teach them enough to help them find their destiny.
