am i still a writer?
the grief of letting go of a life-long dream
i wrote a short story a couple of months ago and thought i had finally reached out far enough to get a solid grip on the dream of becoming a real writer in my hand, only for it to turn to silk and slip from my fingers almost immediately.
i went to the library and printed it off, all 22 pages, spent nearly a whole five pounds doing so, and said i would go through it line by line with my pink muji ink pen and edit it, work on it, read it over and over until i thought it was perfect. i said i would take it slow, just like i did writing it (about 1,000 words a week), edit a page a day. i got about five pages in before it started to collect dust on my desk, before it started to twist into something representing my guilt, my laziness, my apathy and had to shut it away in my drawer so i didn’t have to face those parts of myself anymore.
it’s been a month or so, probably more, and it’s still in my drawer. what happened? isn’t this what i have always wanted? if our souls are made from the stuff of our dreams then mine is made of words and sentences. mine is made up of all the unwritten scenes that constantly swirl about in my head, all the paragraphs i have yet to write, worn pages of books read over and over and over and one day hoping to see my name on one of them. lately, all of these pages seem blank and do nothing but give me paper cuts.
maybe i never wanted to be a writer. but i was so sure? writing found me, i did not seek it out. writing found me when i knew no other way to express myself, to give my wild, untameable imagination as a child an outlet. i always thought i’d write a book, multiple books, one day. i certainly thought i would have written one by now. but there is a dusty short story in my drawer and i want nothing to do with it. the flow state i hit when i do bring myself to my desk to work on it is real, but i don’t want to climb that mountain every time to get there. and that worries me. at least, it used to.
there is not only one way to write. i adore books and getting lost in stories. i love coming up with stories in my head and maybe once in a while writing at least some of it down. but perhaps i have been chasing the wrong dream. i am a writer, of course i am, but at least for right now, i don’t think i am the type of writer who writes stories for fiction novels. this, what i am doing right now, is something that requires no mountain. there is rough terrain and the hike can be a little steep sometimes, but writing personal essays for me is the pleasing ache in the muscle after a good workout, not the seemingly ceaseless panting after a marathon you did not train for. as long as i am inspired and have a topic i want to explore, a part of myself i want to understand deeper, i could do this all day.
fiction will always be there, i am not crossing it off my list for good. toni morrison published her first novel at 39, murakami didn’t start writing until he was 29. there is time for all that. i am now okay with blowing out the candle that is writing fiction. i can always relight the wick another day.
just a short one from me today. this had been playing on my mind a lot lately, now i feel better. thank you for reading!
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i’ll see you again soon, in the sun room <3