Welcome to February: first day of a new month, shortest of them all, and just days away from celebrating one year of having this amazing platform for expression and sharing that I’ve discovered.
More on that to come.
Before that, today I am pleased to highlight my first Spotlight of February: Sonya Matejko, more commonly/well-known as:
Below I question her on all the wisdom I have found at her blog, on writing, and more importantly on life.
There is a second part, a set of travel questions I hope to post on my travel website very soon.
But now I am thrilled to bits that she has agreed to speak to me here. So here she is.
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She says, first and foremost on her blog, that Single Strides is:
“A blog about falling in love, falling apart, and traveling the world in between.”
This, I read on discovering her, and I was totally hooked. These are the things I write and think about every day.
In this first of her blog posts I wanted to highlight amongst my questions, she speaks on how to deal with the “what if’s and the what not’s”.
You Are So Much More Than Your Mistakes
She says:
“If you were to look up and see the sun you’d realize there are things bigger than your past mistakes.”
Some excellent perspective she offers here.
K: Explain, what is your website all about, what does the name mean to you, and how did you come up with it? What made you start it when you did?
S: Single Strides is a blog about falling in love, falling apart, and traveling the world in between. I started it, truthfully, after a breakup. Now it survives as a place to share my journey of falling back in love with life and the world around me. Because sometimes, in order for someone to be a muse… they have to be the heartbreak too.
“There are far too many expectations – don’t meet them. There are far too many rules – go break them. There are far too many risks – take them all.”
6 Things Every 20 Something Should Be Grateful For
The second of her posts I’ve chosen to highlight is one for all the twenty something’s. It is a very popular blog niche out there, as it is a decade for learning and growing in this generation’s youth. I especially loved points 5 and 6 for her unique perspective on the morning commute and on the promise of a new day, every day.
K: Have you always loved writing and why?
S: Yes. Ever since I can remember I was a writer. Even in Kindergarten we were to all publish a book, and mine made it to the city’s newspaper. From there my love for writing only grew. It’s an escape to a different world. As a writer, you live in your imagination and it brings a different kind of light into your life. And now, I’d have to say my biggest joy from writing comes from messages from people who have been positively effected by my writing. It’s an indescribable blessing to inspire.
“She dreams of better days and of feats achieved. Her imagination runs as wild as the breeze and it joins with the rain while it floods the fields – only so life could grow. She dreams of a bloom but fear is keeping her from planting the seed. So she lives in her past and smiles out of practice. She’s happy with the present as slowly as she lets it come. but she’s stuck on the memories that no longer ring true. And the people that are gone but she still clings to.”
This third of her posts I’ve selected is my favourite, for sure. I had trouble picking just one quote from this one. Do yourself a favour and check out what she had to say. She so perfectly describes the state of me at many times in my life. It’s kind of scary actually, as if she has seen into my mind.
🙂
She has inspired me with all she says here about how to live with and accept the past, while learning to let go and move forward.
K: Where and how have you learned the most about how to become a writer or how to improve and grow as a writer?
S: Honestly, I still work on it every day. My grammar is still not where it needs to be, and I could definitely increase my vocabulary. Yet I do think my most valuable lessons on writing have all come from the simple mantra of “write what you know.”
“To my ex thank you for breaking my heart. If it weren’t for the heartbreak, this blog would never exist. This is the home of all the emotions that you spilled out of me that had nowhere to go.”
In this post she thanks people, from her friends and family to her readers and to the one who broke her heart. This is giving credit where credit is due because love, even when it ends, shapes us and it brought her to the point where she had to write this blog. Very glad of that.
K: What do you believe writing can bring to our world or achieve for a better world. if anything? What, for you, is the connection between love and writing?
S: Writing can change you once you’ve read it – even if for a moment. There have been countless books that have inspired me to live my life a different way. Countless articles that can given me the courage to act, the will to laugh, and the hope that things will get better. Writing has an intense power to sway your heart and your mind. Us writers need to keep sharing our words not for the sake of sharing, but to change just one life.
“Single strides will get me there. They may not always be straight, they may sometimes be clumsy, but they will always be moving forward. So how many decisions did it take me to get to where I am now? I could ask the tide, or I could just let it cool my feet ant just be happy I am simply alive to feel it.”
This has been her path and I can’t wait to continue to follow her through her posts.
K: What are your future hopes, plans, and dreams for your writing and for Single Strides?
S: I really would love to grow my brand. I’d love for people to really resonate with it and look forward to upcoming articles. I’d eventually like to have a big enough fan base to begin (or edit) my novel. My end goal has always been to publish a book, and not just to get on the B&N shelves… but to be the book people tell their friends “you absolutely have to read this.”
“Because you’ll never get to where you’re meant to go by standing still.”
And here’s to many many more.
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I want to thank Sonya for agreeing to answer these questions I had for her and for being her true, authentic self. She, in her early twenties, has discovered things I am just now learning as I enter my thirties. She does it all, by sharing her journey with heartbreak (which is what I first majorly related to in her writing) and by being independent and strong in every single stride forward she is taking in her life.
Sonya has been published in such publications as:
and
And has written guest posts for:
and
Also, you can keep up with her on the following social media outlets:
and on
Sonya is making single stride after single stride and little does she know it, but she has helped me work through hard times and difficult transitions. Her story, my own, and many others is:
“PROOF HOPELESS ROMANTICS AREN’T SO HOPELESS AFTER ALL”
10 Reasons Why Hopeless Romantics Aren’t Hopeless After All
Good to know.
🙂
Thank you, Sonya, for all this and much more.>
Her Headache 