There comes a time where you have to look back to see where you are heading and to look at the journey back.

Most times you will find the path is all connected in a straighter line then one would think.

For me, I then try looking deeper at the trail. To see, again, what I have learned along the way.

What journey am I talking about? Oh! Well, the journey that brought me to the point of 'writing' a song I'm very proud of. The song you can hear above.

When I was little, as I have said before, I use to make up stories for older my brother. Telling them to him, through the walls, while we were trying to fall asleep. They were silly ones, just off the top of my head, when I was 5 years old. My brother had his favorites and it was a way to unwind, quietly at the end of the day, when you were not really sleepy.

My brain has always answered questions in story form. Why I always say, to me, there are never 'yes' and 'no' answers. There are always different sides to a story or answer. To say a yes or no, to me, doesn't give the question service.

The stories told late at night, made up on the fly, were wonderful to me. It was something I loved to do and was good at. I would weave stories in my head. I was lucky enough to have a brother that liked to listen to them. To have something that you loved to do, and have an audience, at a young age, has always stayed with me.

As you get older douts and life invades. The stories, while some still told, end up put aside.

One day you find yourself on a platform and see a post called 'Freewriters Wanted' and happen to click on it, not knowing that your life would change forever that day. The day you started getting your freedom back.

Freedom to not be judged. Freedom to make mistakes. Freedom to be yourself was something given to me that day. I didn't know it yet, how a story about pigs wandering a street singing, would change my life once again for the better.

I am not a great writer but what I am is someone with a huge heart. When something touches my heart, what comes out in my writing, has deep meaning to me, making my soul happy.

The plus side to all of this is, sometimes other people like what I do. That too makes me happy. Sharing a part of me and making people happy is what life is all about. To connect with other people is a gift that should never be taken for granted in any way.

To have a place where I can write freely anything I feel the need to, has been freeing in so many ways. It has changed my life for the better.

For all of this and more, I thank @mariannewest for starting and maintaining the Daily Freewrite Challange. I also have to thank @f3nix, who, from the beginning, has always been there to lend encouragement to me even when what I wrote was not worth the paper it was written on or was it?

To many who say this platform is only for the great epic writings, I say, now, once again, that you are very wrong.

You see, to me, if you go back and read the over 100 tales, I have written, under the #freewrite tag, you will find a greater story being told. One of friendships, hardships, tears, and laughter. A story about a woman that grew a tiny bit every day. A person that learned to love herself again.

You will see, in the greater story, how the woman learned to love and trust other people again, in the loving environment she now found herself in.

If those first stories were never told, and the people I met along the way, had not encouraged me like @wandrnrose7, @brisby, @omra-sky, @byn, @felt.buzz and @deaconlee did. I never ever would have had the guts to carry on learning to just trust in myself to even try to make a story/song like I did yesterday.

My wonderful son @ecoinstant and friend for life @simgirl are now going Hey! but I was there too!! and they were and are! but hearing how wonderful you are, from people that love you, while it always touches my heart, in the back of my head, is always the thought, they are just being nice because they love me.

So finding a place where no one knew me and still be encouraged every day was a true gift from God, to me, in so many ways. A gift that keeps giving and growing every day.

@mariannewest I thank YOU for being who you are! For starting and working to make the Freewrite community a house, a home, where I feel like family. I place where I can go and just be myself, for good or bad and know in the end I am loved. For this, I can never thank you enough.

To my family members of The House of Freewrite, I thank you ALL for putting up with me on days I get crabby, tired and decide that poking someone is the activity for the day. For being there for me on the journey that has passed and with me on my journey that is still to come. I too can not thank you enough.

I leave you with the song above in just audio form.

I'm proud of it.

For me to say that, is saying a lot. I also believe in the message it holds and the memories of me being 5 years old, telling stories off the top of my head, to my brother, late at night.

I hope you will take the time to listen above or go and watch the video as it means that much to me. I think it deserves two posts. It is that special to me.

Once again, thank you, everyone, and not just those I named, for giving me the courage to find myself, my soul once again.

Love,

Snook

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