Oh, the places we go...

   I am in the process of writing a book.

   Wow. Written out like that, it sounds frightening and intimidating. It also seems a tad self-righteous. I mean, who am I to think that I could write a book? I have no degree in English, Journalism, or Creative Writing . . . in fact, I am not even majoring in any of those areas. Who am I to think that I could write a book about sex trafficking, such a complicated and touchy subject? My Social Work degree is not even halfway complete. 

   These thoughts plague me day after day as I struggle to complete this book by the contest deadline. Even now, I'm not certain that it will be done and polished and perfected and ready for the critiquing eyes of others besides myself.

   But even if I hide these pages away from the world, allowing no one but myself to see them, they will still be there. And the characters I have created will still live in my head. And the places that I have described will still exist in my heart. Because places are meaningful.

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   I stumbled across a friend's blog today; her latest post is about places and how we leave a part of us in each place that we visit. I know exactly what she means. 

   She and I have always been similar in our thoughts and ways we enjoy spending our time. ***I am about to embarrass both myself and her immensely (sorry, Noms!).*** I can remember countless days that we played in the woods behind my house, pretending to be Indians and Laura and Mary Ingalls and runaway slaves working our way along the Underground Railroad (only us . . . I don't really know where that one came from). We would rather run around barefoot outside than sit in front of the television (then again, neither of us had cable . . . maybe that's why we were - and are - the way we were . . . ). We may not have been the most talkative pair when it came to "real life", but our imaginations made up for that. We became the characters that we imagined and lived the stories we created. Creativity was always our outlet.

   Now, we both still remember those days; I long for those times where my imagination was vivid and alive and I hope that I can tap into at least half of that creativity that I know is hiding within me somewhere for this book that I am penning.

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      She writes of places she's been, places she's cried, places she's dreamed, places she's prayed . . . and I can identify. As she describes the rusted fire escape on her college campus, I see the tree-stand in the woods behind my grandparent's house. As she talks about the spot in the ivy that is still indented even though she's been absent all summer long, I think of my own spot in a tree by the creek behind my house, a place I haven't visited in years. As she writes of the road engulfed in a tunnel of trees, I imagine the path snaking through the trees that I have walked so many times before. As she shares about the dark field that visited when she needed to clear her head, her Super Secret Stargazing Spot, I think of my horse pasture that I frequented when I needed to be alone, yet longed for silent company, which Annabelle and Emily (my ponies) provided. 

   And then I think of places that technically do not exist . . . not outside of my mind, that is. The room a seventeen-year-old heroin addict lives in to avoid her abusive mother. The small house built upon the red Ugandan dirt of a young missionary, scared to death, but more scared of what will happen if she does not follow where God leads her. The drive-in theater parking lot where teenage boys go to smoke weed because they want to escape the chaos that is their lives. The natatorium where Olympic dreams are built and worked for, and often crushed. The warehouse full of drugged underage girls being raped five, ten, fifteen times a night by men old enough to be their fathers. 

   These places are those that I have created in my head and heart. Some for stories I've thought up, some for poems I've penned, and some from the book that I am currently pouring my heart and soul into. These places truly and vibrantly exist for me; you cannot tell me that they are not "real". 

   I have left pieces of myself in each one of them. I have cried in that young woman's room . . . I have dreamed in that missionary's home . . . I have cursed the nightmare that I am living in that theater parking lot . . . I have worked harder than I ever thought possible in that natatorium . . . I have begged for mercy in that warehouse . . . 

   Because I am a writer and I am a dreamer and my imagination flies freely when I let it. 

*     *     *     *     *

   She's right. We do leave part of ourselves in the places that we visit and cry in and dream at. 

   And, in my opinion, that includes all places. The ones that you physically visit and the ones that you go to mentally and even the ones that you emotionally create in your heart.

   Places are places. And places are meaningful.