In this, my 100^th post, I feel compelled to come clean.

I have been running…and not in the good way. But, first, let me explain.

The trouble all started a year and a half ago when I extracted pure gold from my favorite used bookstore back home: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. The book was published in 1986, and I harbored strong initial doubts. Six dollars, however, wouldn’t break me, so I took a chance. And, truthfully, I have not been able to put the paperback down since.

Perhaps most striking of all in Goldberg’s inspired wisdom is the following passage:

You practice whether you want to or not. You don’t wait around for inspiration…[y]ou train your mind to cut through or ignore your resistance. You just do it. And in the middle…you love it. When you come to the end, you never want to stop.

Her message is quite simple: Keep writing.

A month after reading these words, I signed up for WordPress. Two months later, readers began to follow my writing.

And seven months later, my book found me.

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I have this most annoying habit. Unless I know an endeavor will be a success, I tend to avoid it…at all costs. Perhaps my best example of this is the various men I dated in college. When it was clear to me that no matrimonial future would ever materialize, I cut them out completely (and often without warning).

But I’m an adult now, and recent life revelations have infiltrated every hour. Tragedy. Pain. Love. Loss. I have found that which I cannot escape.

You need to write this, Lauren.

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But it isn’t that simple: Write your story, and the world will love you! No, quite often the opposite is true. Words hold significant consequences.

What if I hurt someone?

What if no one ever reads what I write?

What if I fail?

And yet I can’t resist the mental clarity that writing offers or the unexpected encouragement that keeps my pen moving. The calling, even when I bury it, remains.

My confession is this: I am writing the story of myself…finally. I am no longer scared. I am no longer a victim of my own doubting. I am no longer running.

And if the pile of words I produce should go unnoticed by the world, I have the peace of an undeniable truth.

It made me a better mom.

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One Year Ago: The Fruit of Addiction