So that's the thing.

I'm still trying to find the right place for myself. All these years into the game and I'm still trying to decide on a game piece. Frustrating.

I was reading an article in a magazine yesterday and understood, from the author's description of himself, that he's a guy probably ten years my junior whose sole purpose it is to write about himself for one of the world's most-read publications. That's it. He writes and they print it and the whole world reads it. And I thought 'Seriously? How does he get a gig like that?'

I've had more people tell me 'you should write' than I can count. So I do that. I write all the time. I get accolades galore about my annual Christmas card. (The sheer brilliance of which is owed entirely to the fact that my children are so delicious its hard not to love the card, no matter what I say.) I crank out one killer of a thank-you card. (For which I often receive thank-yous - go figure.) I pour my heart into a myspace blog that a select few are really complimentary about. (All of them are much better writers than I am, so that's a real head-scratcher.)

But what, really, am I doing with myself? Am I a closeted greeting card writer? Yikes.

Of course, I've considered things other than writing.

My love of history and my unnatural affection for fairness led me, early in my search for self, to the idea that I might become an attorney. I was a pre-law/history major at university. Until I worked for a law firm the summer after freshman year. I saw the stress-filled, tiresome, family-deprived lives the lawyers led and thought 'I'm not good at stressed, tiresome, family-deprived tasks'. So that idea tanked.

Friends of mine who had similar awakenings in college but ignored them are currently in mundane and unfulfilling jobs. I'm sorry for them because although I haven't found exactly the right thing for myself, I'm still looking. Opting out of the search is not in the cards for me. Of course, finding the niche in the haystack might not be either, but I'd rather die trying than simper off having given up.

For now, I make quite the real estate broker. Got a pretty decent market share in my neighborhood, which if you know anything, actually means something. (I don't, particularly, know what that means, but I'm told its good and I'm running with it.) I love learning the histories of homes and neighborhoods I go see. It thrills me to add chapters to those stories by bringing new families to those homes and those neighborhoods. The idea that I am, even in a small way, contributing to the stories those places will tell is something I will always be proud of.

So that's the thing. Even when I'm not writing, I am. Because, really, that's what I do. I tell stories. I write. I am a writer.

So I'm going to use this spot to write. And I hope you find something here to laugh about or think about. And then we'll both have found something. Wouldn't that be great?