I had the opportunity to speak to Zonta Int’l members in Longview about the journey I’ve taken (a bit twisty, and not without it’s sudden drop-offs) and how grit and hope are the antidotes to digging one’s self into a hole when all obvious purpose and plans seem gone. I’d never articulated that message out loud and it was a liberating experience to talk about the lengths women (ok, me) will go to and the crap we willing to endure to further an intrinsic need to make a community better. For me, the end result was creating the novel, The Big Inch. But as with all writers, this is not really the end. It’s the beginning.