Lately I feel like I’m supposed to write a story about a woman overcoming some sort of great adversity and finding her life’s meaning in the process. Perhaps that’s just my mind trying to nudge me along on that same journey with this made up woman I haven’t I met, or thought of, yet. Maybe it’s just that I’ve started reading Tolkien.

When I was a kid, a friend’s mother told me that I was going to do something great with my art. She said it matter-of-factly. I was flattered but didn’t necessarily believe her. I liked to draw and that was all. I wasn’t even given the option of making a career out of it until I flunked my intro college chemistry class so badly that I knew my parents’ dreams of my science degree were out the window.

Now, over 20 years later, on the verge of turning 34 years old, I’m sitting at my desk, at a corporate graphic design job, wondering what it was that woman saw in me and how I can get it back.