A journey through a young writer's heart
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It's been a while since the last blog post, I know,
but I meant it when I said that I still care about this blog. Now follow me on
a journey through a dark forest of anxieties and doubts until revelations cast their
light past the top of the trees and show me the way out into the sunny meadow
from where I will strike out on the adventure of my lifetime.
I don't want to make any excuses for not blogging more often but the crossroads that I've been standing at these past few months is giving me a hard time, when I should actually be happy about what I have accomplished this year. I finally graduated, which means I survived final year. (Whoop! Whoop! I am proud owner of the title Bachelor of Arts!) The final year of my studies that was like an ordeal of climbing a mountain with an old tattered rope that threatened to tear any time I relaxed too much. The top of the mountain covered in mist and far away, the goal of graduation seemed unachievable when my fingers clutched at the rope of my sanity. (Too dramatic? ;-P) They say, it's the hard times that show who you really are and I think I may claim that I'm stronger than I thought I was after this final year. I don't know how, but I did it. And now there's yet another misty mountain top (no pun intended ;-P) or should I say the dark abyss everyone faces the day after graduation? What's next?
Well, I'd be lying, if I said I don't have any plans
at all. The plan is to do a masters abroad that specializes in writing after
working for a year to save up the money to even be able to afford said MA.
Sounds like a plan, doesn't it? What's the problem then, you might ask.
At the risk of sounding whiny (possibly incredibly whiny),
I have to admit that, at times, I'm having a hard time staying on this path I
have chosen for myself. I keep tripping over stones of self-doubt and on some
days it's unbelievably hard to get up again and keep going. There! I admit my
weakness of unnecessary fears but what have I said before? Hard times show how
much you can endure and you might find that you come out of it better and
stronger than you were before.
And then again, may I even call this hard times?
Maybe, maybe not. I got a job and a plan for the future. I should be okay. But
self-doubts keep attacking like bats and get entangled in my mind because it's
all a question of knowing who you are and who you want to be. At this age
everyone expects you to trust in your abilities and be confident about who you
are but on those annoying bad days I find it hard to do so. And then I ask
myself how do other people do it? How do they have the confidence to do pursue
a career as a writer?
Okay, let's give a little insight into why doubts keep
creeping up at the moment. One reason for this pessimistic view and doubts is
the environment I am in right now. As always, when I do not taste the salty air
of my beloved islands (you know which ones ;-P) and I'm back in Austria for too
long, the world seems a bit darker and more dull. (Believe me, it's not funny
looking for a job here with that degree. If it wasn't for the work experience I
did in Bristol last year, I wouldn't have gotten a decent job. Do internships,
people! It's not something career advisors only make up to annoy you. ;-P) Gone
are the high spirits that I have when I am abroad, which make me skip with the
joy of life or float above the ground lifted by my dreams and the belief that I
will be able to reach anything I want in life, if I just keep working hard and
believing in myself. Instead, I have to fight back these stupid anxieties that
my dreams are too big to achieve and I will never be able to do what I love.
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At the end of the day, it comes down to a
self-assertion that I am apparently not able to make yet. Sometimes it's hard
to say that you want to be a writer without laughing hysterically at yourself
for daring to speak it out loud or making a sarcastic comment in the next
sentence about how you would love to be a writer but it's not something you
will ever be able to make a living with. In the face of harsh reality and
conservative minds, I find it hard to stay confident about what I love to do. I
know that I should not have these anxieties that turn into this huge monster
that forces me to procrastinate when I'm actually bursting with ideas. I should
just get it down on the page when I feel the need and I feel that need
constantly. Once I start, I happily let the dam of ideas break and let it spill
onto a blank page. I always forget the satisfaction, how the excitement flows
through my veins, when I finally turn the mist of inspiration drifting through
my head into something concrete. I love how words can turn a dull piece of
paper into something exciting and beautiful, how words make it possible to
convey and focus the formations of ideas that glide through the mind of the writer.
I love how writers are able to create worlds of their own and make characters
come to life so much so that they seem real.
After a long year of too much uni stuff and an inner
editor that tried to convince me that everything I wrote was crap, I had almost
forgotten how much joy I get out of practicing the craft of writing. Through
participating in NaNoWriMo and thinking about why I love writing for my personal
statement for the masters, I found back into my very own world of imagination.
Writing is what I need and what gives me happiness. So, it's time to put the
what ifs aside and be positive about what I love to do. Coming to this
conclusion, I finally realized that under the pile of doubts, I will always
find my ambition to be a writer. I know (and here I have full confidence in my
ambitions) that I will never lose the determination to pursue a career in
writing. I just love it too much to ever give it up. So, despite all the doubts
and fears, I AM ready to take the next step on my chosen path of becoming a
writer, after all. Undoubtedly it will be hard and I will probably have to
climb up and down a whole mountain range before I reach the top I want to stay
on. But I'm already looking forward to the view up there now. ;-)
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