Strength in Numbers

“I’m not afraid of storms for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”
—- Louisa May Alcott

June has been an exciting month. Lots of blessing flowing all around. My daughter accepted a new position teaching high school English in the area, and she and her husband are settling only fifteen minutes away from me. My son has accepted a new position as Athletic Director at a local high school and I am so grateful that I won First Place for my novel, “Weather Permitting,” at the Southeastern Writers Association Conference in St. Simons Island Georgia.

Friends have asked where they can find it, when they can read it. It’s lovely that people are interested. Unfortunately, I’m still at the beginning of the process and I’m looking for an agent to help me publish. “They” say that the easy part is writing the book (not sure about that), so I am querying agents to see if there is any interest. Everything takes time. Makes me wish I were about twenty years younger.

Today, I’m thinking about strong women, great women who refuse to quit when the going gets tough, and I know bunches of them, some of them good friends. The protagonist in my story has quite a bit in common with women who have gone through the after effects and trauma of a mid-life divorce. She searches for a way to fit in to her new life and finds out a lot about herself in the process. We have all been there in some form or fashion. I don’t know the statistics but I’m betting they are high for women who have gone through turmoil, whether via divorce or relationship upheaval, and survived only to grow and blossom in the end. 

Most women are strong and it’s their strength of character, strength of values, strength of duty, and other internal forces that carry them through life. I used to say, “Men can’t change, which makes women have to adapt.” Now, I think that adaptation simply put means that we can handle just about anything life throw at us. It’s not adaptation. It’s strength.

 My good friend says, “I know many great women but I know very few great men.” I know both but I’d have to say the women do outnumber the men in the category of inner strength.

I would love your feedback on this topic. See you next month! 

Jody