About

How I Became a Writer

I loathe writing bios about myself. And that’s why it is my craft.

I am a notorious Jill-of-All-Trades. When I was seven, the first sign I made for my bedroom door gloated: “Justina the detective, scientist, writer, and astronaut is in.” Mom tried pretty hard to add “doctor” or “lawyer” but there wasn’t any room left.

And that inability to niche down in my childhood did not improve as I became an adult. I was always doing more than one thing and quitting more than one thing. No one could keep up with who I was or what I did. I have spent more than a year being an actor, an executive assistant, a playwright, a theater owner, a publicist, an entrepreneur, a screenwriter, an HR director, a festival director, an extreme dog rescuer, a non-fiction book writer, and even a non-religious pastor. I was happy being all of those things until I wasn’t and I was onto the next thing.

Having parents who wanted me to specialize in something safe while I feared commitment with career paths, I developed a life of dabbling. I would dive head first into what pleased me but succumbed quickly to being what pleased others. As I got older, I outgrew many fears. I stopped fearing quicksand. I stopped fearing spiders (kinda). But I grew terrified of a stranger asking me, “What do you do?”

I found a way to survive jumping from place to place and doing my passions as a hobby. Until my multi-tasking, multi-passion, multi-career life came to an abrupt halt when the world did – 2020.

When 2020 started, I had a husband, six dogs, four cats, a food garden, and multiple career and volunteer titles which included publicist, philanthropy manager, board member, and festival director.

By June, I had lost every paying job, left every volunteer post, and the most painful of all, lost my most loved title: Dad’s daughter. Father passed and nothing made me feel like the world was ending as much as that moment.

After navigating a pandemic to say goodbye to my father, it became very clear I was losing my mother as well to dementia. For three years, I had no other job except taking care of my mother. I would write down the good moments because, while I was still able to see the vibrant woman of my childhood through the disease, I also needed something to look at in the darkest hours when my mother was plagued with fear and anger.

Then last fall, Mom had progressed to a point I knew remembering me and remembering English could go any day. So we were able to find her a Japanese-speaking memory care facility before the transition would be too traumatic for her. Once she settled, I visited twice a week. Every visit, she thought I was there for the first time. So she would introduce me to everyone and say, “This is my daughter. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s a writer.”

Alzheimer’s took her memory of wanting something safe for me. And it gave her clarity of how she truly saw me. Nothing is more empowering to me than the blessing of my parents. Every moment I heard her proudly call me a writer made my heart fill with so much joy, I wanted to burst. I never tired of watching her introduce me.

And then the world came to a halt again. Mom developed pneumonia. Sepsis. And she came home for hospice. Just the two of us again.

When she came home, I met many people. Nurses, caregivers, and health aides. And many stayed long enough to warrant an introduction. Mom was easy to introduce. I set up a little shrine for her and Dad and showed every guest photos from their youth and told their very romantic story. But when asked about me, I was still lost. So I adopted Mom’s intro for me: “I’m her daughter. I’m a writer.”

And here we are. The intro stuck. I’m ghostwriting for a living. And I’m working on a memoir, which is basically an intro in book form. The irony does not escape me.

What held me back from being only a writer for so much of my life was wanting to please my mother. And in a very direct way, her dementia not only cleaned the slate for both of our lives, but it also opened the door, with her blessing, for my evolution into who I am.

I have honed in on memoirs, biographical pieces, and bios because my only regret in life is not documenting the memories of my parents until they were gone. It was all the more painful as I grew the realization of wanting to document their stories as they faded from my mother’s mind.

My mission is to help people leave a well-worded history of their lives for others, because we are all heroes in a journey that is universal and wise. Our journeys told are imperative to our collective healing. I heal with every story about myself I tell. My clients heal as I help them tell others about their journey. We are all a pantheon with legends to tell.

Hello. I’m Justina. And I am a writer.