The question muted me. Not because I didn't want to answer it, or couldn't. But because it has been so long since I've thought about it, so long since I've had to voice the concepts. "Nothing?" I said, choking on the word.

It seems that in all my doing, learning and striving to make relevant and significant EVERYthing about life -- I have forgotten about me, the reason why, the how and the who. I'd forgotten why I wanted to do what I do.

While I couldn't answer his question on the spot, I was able to tell him something a few minutes later. (For me, the question is the key to unlocking the answers inside of me--not that I lock the answers, they just don't come to me right away.)

Finally, tonight, after putting a few cute kids to bed, I sat at the family's computer to compose a quick email. The quick email turned into about two pages of rediscovering who I am, what I love, where my passions lie.

It seems to be a time of awakening worthy of Kate Chopin perhaps. (Ok, maybe not. I don't envision a watery suicide. Hardly. Just the title. That's all.) What else will revive as I delve into the chambers of my heart that I locked a few years ago?

In the meantime, here's a snippet of what I wrote:
I want to show people, especially kids, that they're valuable no matter what they do or who they are. If it's when babysitting, I want to give the kids a chance to try something new, to encourage them to be creative and playful and to think and imagine. If it's with teens, I want to help them sort things out and get through the confusion that comes with being a teen.

I want people to know they're important and that they matter, that they're loved and have purpose and meaning. If it's with books, I want my characters to discover this. I want the books to inspire those who read them or to fill the readers with a sense of hope, of calling, of purpose, of interest in the world around them, of their own uniqueness and place in the world.

If it's reporting, I want to write what's true in a new and beautiful way, I want to open up the eyes of the world to see both sides--the good and the bad--of what's around them. I want to offer hope and reconciliation with my words, to bring out the redemptive aspects of a sad or broken situation. I want my words and actions to bring life and light into places of death and darkness. I want to write and do things with significance, things that will change others' lives for the better forever.

That's what life is for. Not for death and dying, sickness, disease, and heartbreak. Life was meant to be a joy, to enjoy the world around us, to be at peace with each other, to feel free to be ourselves in every way, to be open with each other and unafraid to love. That's the world that I want to live in.

In the meantime, I'm figuring out how to reconcile that dream with what I see around me, with what I know is happening. And if the best way to do that is to go to those hard, painful places, to feel deeply for the people whose situations seem so dire, whose lives are less than what they were meant to be, then I'm willing to do that.

I'm willing to reach in -- and to open myself up.