Writing is a wonderful way to inspire and be inspired. In my life as a school principal and as a parent of three children and grandmother to five children, I've always encouraged students and my littles to write and to journal. When they do this, they learn to explore their emotions in a metacognitive manner and be reflective about their emotions and healthily manage their emotions. Writing is also a way we can escape our reality and allow for creativity to guide our thinking and tap into our enjoyment through reading and writing. These past four years have been the most challenging in my life. I lost several family members to COVID-19, including my mother and father. I got COVID pre-vaccine and as a result, have been fighting many health issues and have had several surgeries. I had to take an early retirement from my love of being a school principal. I have been battling depression, anxiety, and panic attacks and writing has captured how I've felt, looking for a place to hide, constantly looking for a way out, wanting to feel alive again. Writing has offered me a place to escape and explore the practice of mindfulness and self-awareness. I have slowly started to reconcile with the woman in the mirror. Writing has offered me a way to stick together with myself; my inner child, my fun-loving self, my unhealthy and depressive self, my complicated and beautiful self, we need to stick together. *Birds of a Feather - I sing this song to the woman in the mirror. Growing up, we had a beautiful green parrot named R2-D2. My mother, an English learner, called him Arturito. He was the best. My mother was a whistler and she taught him to whistle songs a many. She also taught him how to cuss in English and Spanish and how to kiss and clean the mascara from our eyelashes. He always called my name when I approached our house from school. He was awesome. I hope to one day own another parrot, if not for the price tag, I'd already own one! "Birds of a feather, we should stick together", my inner child, my fun-loving self, my unhealthy and depressive self, my complicated and beautiful self, writing helps me remember that we need to stick together. One of my goals has been, and continues to be, to write children's books that can also be used for instructional practice in developing agency and identity in children. At 54 years old, I've decided to pursue another Master's degree in Special Education because in my life as a principal, I had a "bird's eye view" (pun intended), of the good, the bad, and the ugly in meeting the needs of our students with intellectual and mental exceptionalities. I developed systems in my schools to better support true inclusion within the least restrictive environment for all children. This work is engaging my mind and I'm slowly trying to work on issues outside of myself and the challenges I've been facing. I continue to further my own education with the goal to expand my understanding in different areas within my field of practice. I am a forever learner and as such, I want to contribute to my field by engaging children in their own journey as learners and as teachers, as they too bring much to the table and add value to our lives. I want to draw from my experiences and my learning to better achieve my goal of becoming a children's book writer.