This is a way overdue letter of thoughts that I once believed that I could say to you I person, but it is very simple.

You changed my life.

Thank you, Julie Powell.

In the summer of 2009, I was a mother of two children five and under, struggling with neuropathy and other undiagnosed chronic issues that sometimes made the act of being touched difficult. My husband was deployed away from us four days a week, and the career of my dreams seemed somewhere lost in a dusty path miles and years behind me.

On a rare night out with my best friend, her mom, and mine, we went to see a Meryl Streep film. Truly I knew nothing more about the movie than that.

As I watched your story of a woman feeling creatively lost, especially in the wake of 2001, I connected deeply. I simply wasn’t happy. I, too had a husband that loved me. In fact, I had two children I loved deeply. However, I had a deep hungry hole that I could NOT fill.

So, as I watched you take on the impossible task of Julia Child’s cookbook, I thought “cool”, but when you pulled up “blogspot” and started writing, I thought “YES!” Yes. Yes. Yes.

That night I went home with the smallest lift in my heart. I had an idea.

I started blog.

On August 29, 2009, I sat down at my computer (desktop, mind you) and wrote my first entry of my first blog, 38 and Growing, I had no idea what I was doing. I numbered them because you did. Here’s what it looked like.

That was it. But you did that. And I stayed with it. here it is. 13 years later, a different blog, but as Elton John, and more recently the Sanderson sisters, said, “I’m still standing”.

But how did it change my life?

I was lost and I was lonely.

I felt so very alone as a mother and as an artist with no outlet. Writing the blog changed that. The act of writing everyday became an outlet, but it also became a connector. He led me to others out in the world that understood. When you feel locked in four walls of despair and failure, you can believe that it is only you. I saw that in you. You saw success in your peers, but not in your life. That was me.

These new friends told me, “no”. You matter. You have a voice, a talent, “you don’t suck as a mom”, etc. And I learned that these new post-modern pen pals were real and they fed me, just as they fed you across that year. I am actually still friends with many of them now.

Last week when I heard of your passing, I stifled a cry. Gone was my imagined meeting of you. Just as you dreamed of telling Julia how she had influenced you, I had the same fantasy. I can only hope that somehow today you feel this.

Julie, you were special. For your books, of course, but also, because you were vulnerable. You changed people in sharing a story of struggle and ingenuity. We learn from those who don’t flow from success to success. Rarely does that happen to the rest of us and rarely do we remember those to whom success comes easily.

So goodnight, sweet Julie. You created a star, I hope to shine well in your honor.

Sincerely,
StarTraci

Dear Julie,

Thank you, Julie Powell.

I started blog.

But how did it change my life?

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