Clearly, Astrid is important to me. Otherwise, why would I be writing this when I could be doing so many other things - like continuing to revise the heck out of my novel and submitting it?
Great question, Friend! Thanks for asking.
Astrid came to me in a flash of light and stars. ...That's probably where her name came from, matter of fact. I was sitting in my truck one day, thinking about all the things I wanted to do with my life, and how there were still some things I want to do. And then I started thinking about peeps who could no longer do everything they wanted to do - had they managed to do everything they had wanted to? And then my brain bounced back to all the important people in my life. And then I realized I had passed my turn and had to go another million miles in the wrong direction to get back.
So...going out of my way, huh... That felt on-the-nose. I needed a drink. So, I pulled through a Dunkin' Donuts drive-through and got myself a sweet (but not toooo sweet) iced tea. That's one of my thinking drinks. (I have several. We'll talk about those in a different story.) Drinking my humongous tea, my brain started to wander some more while my eyes stayed on the road. So many people in my life wound up by accident, by circumstance, in places they had never intended to be. So many had just floated around, bumping around from place to place, touching down whever they happened to be. Which is great - I have lived my whole life just floating around. And that's cool.
And yet.
Here it is: Astrid is important to me because Astrid is my mom.