I loved to read when I was a kid. Both my parents were readers. I also loved to write stories and poems.

Around 12, I started outgrowing the teenage drama series I had been reading, so I asked if I could read my parents’ Dean Koontz books. That led me to Stephen King, and I was blown away by the idea that someone could write stories and actually get paid for it.

By high school, I was taking creative writing classes and beginning to understand how big the world of writers really was. I wanted to be part of it.

As I got older and became a mom and wife, writing fiction became something I thought I would come back to someday when my kids were grown.

But during those years, something else became important to me too. I wanted to help women.

Raising kids and taking care of a family was hard, and I felt like women needed more support. It seemed like we were expected to handle everything and somehow still do it with a smile on our faces.

I even went to a local college for a little while with the goal of becoming a therapist who worked with women.

I knew women needed more support, but back then I didn’t understand how much my own beliefs were shaping the way I was living.

I thought being a good mom and wife meant putting my family’s needs before my own. I didn’t know I could take care of myself and still be a good mom and wife. To me, it felt like an either-or situation.

It was the nineties, and self-care wasn’t something we talked about. I didn’t have a role model showing me what it could look like. Even if someone had told me it was okay to take care of myself too, I’m not sure I would have known how to make that work in everyday life.

I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’m still learning. It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I started to see how these two things I had cared about for so long could come together.

I could write for women, sharing what I’ve learned and what I’m still figuring out.

I still write fiction for fun, for me. That part hasn’t gone away.

But writing has also become a way to have the conversations I wish I could have had when I was younger.