It was a dark and storm night….
Okay that’s probably bullshit. I actually don’t remember what the weather was like that night. I’m guessing since it was in Texas and it was June 29, 2012, it was uncomfortably hot, sticky, humid, and generally a two-or-three-shower day.
Who I am today is so far removed from the woman I was then that most of you probably wouldn’t recognize me. I was a mother to three, a newly published author, and still battling with depression, anxiety, and the weight gain from having a partial hysterectomy eighteen months prior.
What I do remember about that night was I felt trapped and stuck. I felt lost and on edge. I’d been working on a short story, and had no idea where to go with it. Grabbing my car keys and a bottle of water, I hopped in my car and took off for a drive. Blasting music, I hit 190, which in my neck of the woods is also known as the George Bush Turnpike. I intended to drive to Lake Ray Hubbard and sit on one of the piers and meditate, hoping to snap out of the writer’s block I was experiencing.
I passed by HWY 78 and was closing in on my exit for my destination when I saw the sign announcing the exit for Texas 66.
My mind flashed to being a child and living in Oklahoma City. On a routine trip up to see my Grandmother, I had seen a Route 66 sign and had asked my father what it was. He’d explained to me it was a historic byway, and that there were all these historical sites and interesting points of interest on it going all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles. He told me that he’d driven parts of it throughout his life, but had never driven the iconic route from start to finish, and maybe one day, we could pack up and take the trip together.
I never let go of that idea. Even at the age I was on that drive on June 29, 2012 (thirty-five), I still wanted to take that trip. But the thought set off my default knee jerk reaction of telling myself why I couldn’t take the trip: I had three kids, my father’s health wasn’t the greatest, I couldn’t afford it. I told myself the reasons I couldn’t go were all valid, that I’d have time eventually, that I needed to wait.
Then I called myself out on my own bullshit.
See the thing is, those weren’t reasons. They were fucking excuses, all rooted in fear. And I got angry. And I woke the hell up to how I had been living my life.
That’s the thing: I wasn’t actually living my life. I was scared shitless of taking any chances, of trying anything new, of really putting myself out into the world. And I had been for most of my life.
I didn’t want to waste any more of my life not living my life.
The past five years have been some of the best of my life. And they’ve held some of the largest hurts of my life. But unlike the first thirty-five years of my life, I’ve seen the beauty in the balance of good and bad. I’ve failed just as often as I’ve suceeded. I’ve cried as much as I’ve laughed, and I’ve drank just as much wine to console my broken heart as I have to celebrate the amazing things. I have experienced some of the most beautiful, amazing and healing experiences of my life, and I’m just getting started.
About four years or so ago, a friend of mine and I were talking, and I was telling him about how the lead up to my birthday was always filled with something painful going on. How the lead up to it was always emotionally exhausting to the point I didn’t see the point in really celebrating. “So pick a new birthday. Pick a rebirthday and celebrate the hell out of it.” June 29 was a no-brainer: because in so many ways, I had been reborn on that day into who I had been afraid of becoming.
When I began my life as an author, I had no idea what my life would become. I never intended to become a publisher, yet still, I began a publishing house eighteen months into my life as an Indie Author. Again, it was a no brainer: 629 Publications’ name is based on the date I began to truly live my life. June 29, or 6-29 is a date that I’ll always celebrate.
And with that, when it came time to pick a release date for my latest collection? I chose today. Book number 25 releasing on the 5th anniversary of my rebirth day? Please, you knew I was going to do it.
Today for me is a day about celebrating my hope and my faith in this life I live, a life that I’ve built for myself and am grateful for daily. It’s about celebrating letting go of past hurts and the realization we are NOT what was done to us. It’s about remaining open to all things beautiful, graceful, and lovely. It’s about living, and learning how to live with an open heart and open mind.
Much love, Dear Readers,
Amber Jerome~Norrgard
ps: if you’re curious, I finally got to take the Route 66 road trip in April 2016. By far one of the best things I have ever experienced, and more fuel to the fire of my going after what I want, no matter how big or how small they are.
Life as Amber knows it 