About Kristina I’ve always loved stories. I love hearing how other people got from there to here. It’s always fascinating to me how many versions of ourselves we can cram into one lifetime.
Throughout my teens and twenties, I’d wander around Borders Bookstore (RIP) and the world was suddenly full of possibilities. Behind every cover of a book was a door to a different world, or a new and improved version of myself. Imagining that I could create one of these magic portals—it felt like a calling.
So in 2010, at the age of twenty six, I left my home state of Florida and moved to San Francisco to get my MFA degree in Creative Writing. This meant quitting my full-time job, leaving behind my friends and family and selling everything I owned. But something in me understood I had to go on my own hero's journey before I could write stories worth telling.
My Author Story
After grad school I found a way to earn a living as a copywriter, got married, had a baby girl, and put my dream of writing books on the shelf for later. But the writing dreams I’d indefinitely delayed felt dead when, four years later, I found out I was pregnant with identical twin boys.
For a few years, consumed with the never-ending monotony of momming three young kids during the pandemic, my dreams of becoming a novelist felt like relics of a former life. Until one day, I was deeply struggling to change another diaper and about to lose my mind when it occurred to me that eventually I’d look back and laugh at moments like this. This thought catapulted me to the computer where I wrote the first scene in what would become my debut novel, Annie In Retrospect. After years of feeling like I had nothing to say, a story poured out of me. A welcome rainstorm after a very long drought.
Drenched in creative satisfaction again, I wondered why I had abandoned this part of myself for so long. How was I willing to give up everything I’d had for this dream, once upon a time, then went on to let it collect dust while I was doing more important things? I think it comes back to stories.
UNFORGOTTEN DREAMS
Most of us spend our youth gathering stories about ourselves in an effort to become who we think we should be. We define ourselves by our roles, relationships, education, job titles, and looks. But all of these things can and will change. Meanwhile, this essential inner voice—our souls, our spirits—in all of our people-pleasing, role-fulfilling productivity, is largely neglected.
Midlife seems to be the time we’re forced to recognize that what’s external is temporary and largely out of our control. But, if we’re brave enough to listen to ourselves and take the time to look inward, we start to question whether the stories we’ve been carrying around are true, or nothing more than dead weight holding us back. And that’s when things start to get interesting. That’s when we finally can hear the call of our hearts.
For me, the way back to myself is through writing. “The writer” is the part of me I can’t sacrifice. It’s the map to my core. It’s my soul expression. It’s how I hear myself through all of the noise. It’s my internal compass. Without it, I feel lost. Suddenly the priorities of the world feel like my priorities and I’m not sure why I exist other than to please others.
We all have so many stories inside of us. I write to reclaim myself and I hope the stories I tell inspire other women to do the same.
RECLAIMING MYSELF THROUGH WRITINGWe all have so many stories inside of us. I write to reclaim myself and I hope the stories I tell inspire other women to do the same.
