2025 A to Z Challenge Blog for the Letter X

April 28, 2025. Only three days left in this year’s challenge. I usually find the last three letters of the alphabet to be the most difficult ones to write about, especially when I’m limited by the theme I’ve chosen. This year, my musings have been all over the place, but these letters still seem shrouded in confusion and mystery, especially the letter X. Other than being the new name for Twitter, the most common means of diagnosing an injury, as in X-ray, or the short from for Christmas, there aren’t a lot of things to be said about it. So, what aspect of the mighty X will I focus on?

Well, I’m going to consider X marks the spot.

Every treasure map has an X on it because X marks the spot where the treasure can be found, but getting from Point A to that X often takes a lot of hard work.

In life, we aren’t all searching for treasure chests filled with gold, but all of us have a series of treasure maps to follow, some easier than others, and everyone of our maps has its own X. Those treasure maps are the various stages in our lives. When you start school, the X on your map of life is graduation. When you reach that X, you move onto the next phase of your life and its map. This time, your X will be finding your career and getting a job. After that, there will be several maps in play all at once … finding love, starting a family, achieving financial security, obtaining personal satisfaction, the list goes on. The map differs for all of us, but each one will have a X that has to be located before you can move on to the next one. Sadly, some of us get stuck on one map. That’s a fact of life. Following those maps from Point A to the X requires more tahn some can manage.

My writing career has been a series of maps, one for each book I’ve written or plan to write. They all start at Point A, the beginning of the tale and end when I reach the X, and the story is complete. Sometimes, I get bogged down in a swamp of new ideas; at others, I have to figure out how the river will fit into the story. Will I need to build a bridge or a raft? Can I get to the X by going in a straight line, or will my path be strewn with mountains, forests, and other obstacles? But, in the end, I will get from Point A to X because X marks the spot.

Today’s song deals with finding what you need.

See you tomorrow for something about Y. Here’s the MASTER LIST https://tinyurl.com/tauke86z