Lisa Mary Erler

When I was a teenager I had two primary dreams. I wanted to write and publish novels that readers would enjoy and find meaning in, and I wanted to be married with four children—two boys and two girls (in that order). I wanted to stay home and not have them go to babysitters like I had to.

I met my husband the second week of my freshman year. I fell instantly into like when I met him and knew we’d be kindred spirits. As our friendship progressed over six months, I fell in love. We were engaged a few months after we started dating. We married two years later.

For my degree I chose English Literature with a minor in technical writing. I chose technical writing because I thought it would be a practical way to have a career as a writer. I didn’t think I was any good at writing fiction, and I wasn’t. I had no “grand” idea. I was a fair poetry writer. I loved writing about literature, and I enjoyed technical writing. I sort of planned on that being my career when I finished college, but I lived perpetually in the moment.

We married the summer before our senior year. The first five months of our married life was incredibly romantic. We were students, so we were poor. We lived in a small one-bedroom studio apartment. We had no air conditioning, so the summer nights were quite hot and humid in Wisconsin.

Our car didn’t work, so we biked and walked everywhere. On summer evenings my husband loved to watch spiders spinning webs. He would stand their fascinated by the intricate patterns. I stood there fascinated with him. For groceries, we pulled a rickety wagon. We found coupons on campus for free two-liters of pop. Every day we redeemed these coupons for a bit more than a month. We had a lot of free pop to drink, which is kind of funny because neither of us are all that into pop. We would bike to a bakery for day-old bread.

The November after our wedding, we became pregnant with my oldest son. I was sick for months. I made it through finals and then through another semester of class. Living perpetually in the moment helped me adjust to the fact I would be an at-home mom and wouldn’t start a career as a technical writer. I was thrilled! But being so young as a mom I was ill-prepared to meet the demands of an infant.

I fulfilled one-fourth of my dream. #1

My husband thought I needed more education. He thought English was a degree in the obvious and that I’d never get a decent paying job with only that as a degree. He pushed me into going to the U of M Twin Cities for a BA in computer science. It didn’t make my heart “sing”, but I did fairly well in my coursework. Baby #2 arrived at the end of my second year—another boy! I was one-half done with a dream. I was able to be a full time mom and a part time student for two more years.

I graduated with the BA in computer science. My husband agreed that I should be home with the boys longer, so I didn’t get a job. Living perpetually in the moment led to baby #3—a girl! Of course, I had to stay home with her like I stayed home with the boys. I was now three-fourths done with my dream!

And then it came time to make my writing dreams come true. When my little girl was two, I started writing novels. It was both difficult and easy. The ideas flowed one after another and the first book—In Time came out of me in a couple months. The difficult part was balancing being an at-home mom and writing. The story-line that took me over twenty years to finalize was birthed in those first few months.

Still balancing writing and motherhood, I had baby #4—another girl!

I stayed home with my children for twenty years, determined to be my kids’ mom. It was tough, yet rewarding, and if I had a choice, I’d do it all over again.

While I raised my children I wrote several novels. I reworked and reworked novels, trying to find the best way to tell the stories I had envisioned.

The era of being an at-home mom ended. I received a masters in Computer Science, and now I work as a Business Analyst for my professional career.

I still write but not nearly as much as I used to.

I still live perpetually in the moment and probably always will. I’ve found that unplanned moments are precious. Trying to “control” life has never worked for me. I live in a world of the “unexpected”, free to just enjoy life as it goes.

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