Getting Up: Finding My Way Back in a Flash, 2011-2014

Prologue

I have always been a little strange, I guess, different from the "normal girls." I started out a cute little kid with very white hair and very white skin, a trait handed down from my maternal grandmother whom I called "Nanny." My mother's family came from Western New York, and their home was situated on the Finger Lakes. If you are not wrapped up like the Michelin kid, you are not going to make it there.
My Dad's family is from South Carolina where grits are a staple, and car racing and football are king. My Dad used to race dragsters at the Cooper River dragstrip, so that right there is a testament to all of the speeding tickets I amassed between Charleston and Colleton counties when I was a younger woman. Thanks, Pop.
I remember when I was about 12, I had multiple ambitions. I wanted to be a race car driver, a musician, a writer, an artist, a world traveler (I once thought of running away to the Amazon, but changed my mind when I saw the size of the wildlife.)
I ended up getting married, divorced, significantly otherized, and finally now I am divorced-single (I think that's right), and I have two wonderful sons to show from the carnage.
Even though I have worked in healthcare for the last 20 years, I know now after searching my heart that I am a writer and an artist and always have been, with an eye on the horizon because I have never stopped dreaming...but five years ago, June 5, 2010, I almost became a statistic and that is why the stories inside this book came about because I wasn't ready to leave yet.
Some people might come away from what they read, that I am just a lost soul who got clean. Not so. I was always the "designated driver" in the wrong place at the right time because of the circle of people floating in and out of my life, a lot of them I don't even know and still don't.
This collection is what I came up with when I was "physically and mentally" rehabilitating, and I had a lot of fun being myself and putting it together.
Writing is like golf. It's a real pain in the ass until you finally hit that winning tee shot.

~Amy Burbage, February 20, 2015~