I’ve done a lot of things later than other people. Went back to school at 32. Began teaching at 35. Had twin boys at 48. Finished my first novel at 55.

Some people say age is just a number. Some people call me crazy. I would agree with ALL those people. Age is just a number and I think I’m insane.

There’s a reason folks have kids when they’re in their 20s and 30s. Kids run you ragged (and in your earlier decades you have more energy to run before you find yourself ragged).

Our family is currently in the raggedy-ass stage. From football to basketball to soccer and theater and dance… we’re coming undone.

And then there’s that teaching gig I have.

Because there’s also a reason teachers retire at 52. Students. So. Many. Students. Don’t get me wrong, I love them. I really, really do. But finding grace and patience for 160-plus 18-year-olds shuffling their way through senioritis in the last semester of the school year is almost more than a body can take.

Thank God Spring Break is arriving soon.

And then there’s that writing gig I have. If you can call it a gig. It’s more of a goal. A long shot. But I’m the queen of long shots. Everything I do is a Hail Mary.

I shoot for the moon. I go long. I have twin babies at 48. I finish writing books I began 20 years earlier at 55.

When I say I go long, I’m not kidding. My days begin at 5:30 AM and nearly every single second of every single one of them is devoted to tending twins and teaching students and doing laundry and cooking dinners and grading essays and loving the most wonderful and supportive husband this world could possibly comprehend. He keeps me sane.

He keeps me sane so I can then go edit my story in the small spaces in between the chaos. The smallest margins imaginable. But then, that’s where Hail Marys thrive. In the impossible spaces. The thinnest of margins.

Where my nerves and energy and patience live too.

But then, so do the miracles. That’s where they’ve been made manifest — in the impossible margins. Fueled by love and faith. So much love and faith.

Like this book of mine. All 400 pages of it. Made in the spaces between. The spaces I’m still using to whittle it down to perfection so its ready for an agent and the world. Ready to toss it out there into infinity.

I’m going long. May it find a place to land inside those thin, impossible – oh so possible! – margins. Because I may be insane, but I’m also blessed. With miracles.