It is pretty weird that the only Ralphs I know are two diametrically opposed ones: Ralph Kramden from the Honeymooners and Ralph Waldo Emerson (birthday today) who entered Harvard at fourteen.
It just reminds me that life is happenstance for the most part. You can't choose your parents and you grow up weed-like in their garden as it were. You are exposed to things, you meet people and you experience things, each of us going in his/her direction based on influences. If you head off to college you'd expect your parents to support you during those foundational years, but often that is not the case except for wealthy families. Lots of folks (myself included) had to sweat and strain for an education and the way life is lived, including what we wind up loving and hating and admiring and letting go of - these are things that are not entirely within our own grasp, at least not initially.
And then there is lovely retrospection, an opportunity for learning anew and trying over and over again to get it right, to get a (new) perspective that is not a pigeonholed view of the world, that tries to get light in all the way around.
I'm lucky, or I consider myself lucky, that was exposed to music and art and a love of beauty at an early age and invited to read a diverse group of authors and exposed to the odd assortment of things that makes me the quirky person I am now. These fortunate events helped me re-spin who I was/am. Not to be a superficial better, but an actual better. If I were the same person I was as when I was 23, I'd be a big fat pain in the ass and I'm grateful I'm not that person. I hope I continue to evolve, even though my age seems to advance faster than my goals. But I'm thinking that the happenstance of life is quilt-like. I guess I feel tonight that fate must have a hand in it. Not sure what you think. I'm still thinking about it. Two Ralphs, sheesh. You'd think I'd know more than two. 

I had wanted (please note past perfect) to go to the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) May conference (since I have 3 children's book projects underway; one nonfiction) and I haven't gone to many of the local meet-ups. Back in January, I said to myself, I'll be ready (to meet an agent) by spring. I saw the email about the conference and then I let a couple of weeks slip by. Big mistake! It's obviously like signing up for classes in college. You have to jump on it right away or you'll be stuck with the phrenology of warts or something. By the time I finally clicked over to look at registration, every single opportunity to make a pitch, meet an agent and  have someone review your first 20 pages was gone. Sigh. Double sigh. On the up side, however, I did learn my lesson. I did sign up for Willamette Writers Conference coming this August. The registration opened today at 8:00am and there I was at 8:17am looking through all the choices and getting registration done. Unlike my love life, where I make the same mistakes over and over again, my #writinglife has a better learning curve. But now the panic sets in with a vengeance! 
I realize I have about a month and a half to get my writing finished, polished and ready for scrutiny (you have to send it in about a month ahead of the conference). And, while I write every day, I go through spurts of organization, calendaring, other misc. admin tasks and finding submission "homes" (for short stories and poetry) maybe once a month. God bless submittable. Now, I feel a hand on my back pushing me to get it together. It's kind of like cleaning when you know company is coming. It gives you motivation. 

There are many things I know how to do well. I can take a good photo. I can take good care of my granddaughter. I can do reasonable portraits and funny little doodles.I can write stories (I didn't say publish). I can build a website - stuff like that. But it's hard for me to be in community. I stink at it. Really, I do. Even after all these years I still struggle with it. I have learned, however, that it is something I need, something everyone needs. We are humans, after all, and humans are social. Even I am social despite my best efforts to live under a rock. The thing is I've learned that even if it (my effort at community) doesn't look terribly successful that I still need to go slogging up the hill (what feels like slogging sometimes). For one thing, I have no perspective. People could think of me of quirkily charming when I think of myself as a pretty much a misfit. Perhaps (here's the most important part) it actually does me some good, a very delayed realization. It changes something in me, something that affects my ability to get out there and do it again, something that helps me take other risks and something that leans in and affects my writing. Like all writers I notice things and I finally noticed this.