It is only recently that I have started thinking about a career vs a job that keeps me from starving and living on the streets. Of doing something I might actually enjoy vs something that pays the bills and I dread going to everyday. When I think back, I realize I never had any real dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just wanted to survive the next day and in survival land there is no time for dreams, for plans beyond the next five minutes. My life was constantly changing. Being dragged from here to there whenever my mum felt the urge to be "motherly".
While I have written my whole life, I never considered myself to have any talent whatsoever. It never once occurred to me that just maybe I could be *gasp* a writer. No one ever took interest in my work or what I did. Some because they didn't care, some because they didn't have time and others because I didn't let them in close enough to know that I could put two words together let alone write a whole story.
Reading the comments from various places where I have posted my stuff has made me stop for a moment and say I just might be able to do this. It is also something I can do when my brain doesn't want to cooperate. You see when you have a "job" and you don't do said "job" the way your boss wants you get fired or when for no apparent reason you suddenly burst out into uncontrollably sobbing while in the middle of performing said "job" you get fired or if you are unable to face the world because you feel like your insides are boiling and your brain is attempting to overthrow your hold on reality so you call in for the 5th time that month you get fired. Holding a job while being crazy is a difficult thing to do. Explaining to your boss who you're talking to when he catches you in the middle of a debate with yourself is not easy. Making him believe that you are not crazy is almost impossible.
So now being 33 25 I find myself dancing with the thought of pursuing a career as a writer. I find myself looking at ways of how to improve my writing. Places I can share my writing and get feedback. Looking into all of the different avenues where I could write professionally. I actually feel kinda grown up. This is a new feeling. It feels like living. Planning. Hoping.
It also scares the hell out of me and I find myself doing things that could potentially destroy all of the hard work I have done over the last few weeks and months. At times I am my own worst enemy. This is something that no one can understand. Hell even I don't understand why I do this. Why I sabotage myself, but I do it. I wish I didn't do it. I am getting better at catching myself before the damage is too great. Before too much damage has been done. Before I have gone too far. I don't know if I will ever be famous or make a "career" from writing, but I do know that I will continue to write because I have found that for the first time in my life I have something that I love and actually want to do. Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks.
say what you really mean
when your ambition calls you
for what use is there in praying
if you only hear what you want to hear
"as i lay dying-the sound of truth"
3 comments:
This is where our paths cross again, my friend. I want, more than anything, to write full time. I'm absolutely losing my mind because I haven't been able to get back to writing Tressie for weeks. Her poor beau has been standing in the middle of the town square, melting in the summer sun, right where I left him three weeks ago. Hope he hasn't died of heat stroke...
I went through this horrible phase of a combination of sabotaging myself and hiding. For example, I would regularly be in touch with a few of my really close friends, and then I'd disappear for a year. Even delete my email account. They'd have no clue what happened until I finally decided to get back in touch with them. It took me a long time to quit doing that. Now, I know I have a couple of friends who would literally drive 12 hours to break down my front door and drag me out. It's so much harder to hide once you've given someone the key to your home.
Yea I have just one friend that has been with me for the past 10 yrs. There have been times I haven't spoken with him for 8-12 month stretches then I will just call him up and be like hey I need help/money/advice because of (insert dilema of the moment here). He just says ok gimme a few hours I will get it sorted. After he does get it sorted, he chews my fucking ass up and spits it out for disappearing and that 1 min is the only time he ever mentions it. After that it's like it's just forgotten.
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