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The Story

I hardly ever worry. I don’t fret. I live quite positively really, except for this one thing: I have been nagged with one fear my entire adult life; I fear that my memory is failing me.

I have girlfriends who have memorized the most detailed information. They know precisely how long their labor was, how much their babies weighed to the ounce, the hour their child lost their first tooth, birthdates and shoe sizes!

At first I attributed my memory lapses on the fact that I have 5 kids (we don’t call ourselves a Tribe for nothing!). I attempted to comfort myself believing no one in her right mind could keep track of so much data. But I never believed it. I couldn’t convince myself to let go of the sad nagging fear that gripped my heart. Some nights I lay in bed wondering “Am I developing Alzheimers?

And then I opened A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.

Chapter ONE: “The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it.”

So it’s not just me?

My heart swelled with relief. My eyes stung with tears that fell … and fell… and fell… I swear at that very moment a weight the size of the world was lifted off my shoulders. To this day, just thinking about it still moves me.

Excuse me – I need a tissue……





My life’s not boring - far from it. I actually have an XL calendar hanging on my refrigerator. Appointments, games, deadlines, birthdays and practices scribbled all over it with no white spaces to spare! Most people couldn’t keep up with me.

And then March 2020 and the Pandemic hit.

I’m not complaining - or bragging – nay, I consider it a serious privilege to raise these children to be healthy, happy, contributing members of society who will love God, themselves and others no matter what they do when they grow up (and who will know how to separate the whites from the colors).

That’s not all I do. 
And then there’s my day job.

My Work


Currently, I spend my days at the front door of our school district serving our administrators, staff, and students as an administrative assistant.

Previously, I spent 16 years as a Parent Educator working with my community, supporting and encouraging parents of young children to be their child’s first and most important teacher. I facilitated playgroups, wrote weekly articles, visited isolated families and gave away children’s books at the health department.

Leadership

I feel passionate about being generous with whatever I have - and that includes my time. I loved being a part of an amazing organization that partnered with women from all over the world to become the leaders they desire to be. EMERGE, a branch of the NLI Network, was an international non-profit organization whos work in Spain, Moldova, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia and with Stella's Voice is brought hope in some hopeless situations and communities. It was my extreme pleasure to have spent over a decade working with this team and if you are a To Write a Better Story reader from Europe, just know I will never forget you or our time together. 

So to write it all out, it doesn’t sound boring and unforgettable but I what I am now understanding, as I study the elements of what makes a good story, along with a season of maturing- is that having a long string of random events, or in my case a plethora of activity, is not the same a living a good story.

I often get compliments on my writing. I've writen for conferences. I write blogs and articles and commentary on my Facebook photo albums. I do it because I like it. I’ve not been formally trained, my Gramerly corrects my English and run on sentences. I hardly know what I am doing.

But I want to do it. I want to write a better story both figuratively and literally. After reading A Million Miles I made a simultaneous, dual pronged decision: I am going to write a better story; with my life and on paper.

Formerly, I considered it a success if I made it through the day. But I don’t want to simply make it anymore. I want to make memories.

And I don’t want to agree with people who think I should be a writer. I want to be a writer.

So I started this blog.
It is a document of me.
Of my journey.
It is my way of Writing a Better Story.

 Wait! Is this a positive turn? Am I, the character, deciding what I want? Could this decision, this blog be the beginning of a good story?


Contact Information



If you would like to contact me for Parent Education services, for speaking engagements, questions or commentary you can reach me in a few ways:

email: starski(at)hotmail.com
twitter: 
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieSikorski






Thank you, in a world where there are more blogs than time to read them, I thank you for reading mine!