Somewhere between a summer of new passions and old frustrations; between the thrill of an internship and the lazy first days which will mark my final year in college; between rainy days and John Mayer songs; between rare moments of clarity and my usual pseudo-profound stream of thought—somewhere, the stories I would have told got lost.
I was parked for three hours at a dentist's waiting room while my sister got her braces readjusted. During the wait I reread (for the nth time) Luis Katigbak's insightful first book,
Happy Endings (which you guys should totally read). Afterwards, I wondered where my stories went.
And for the first time, I wondered if I would ever find them.
Yes, we (who claim to be) writers can be such bitches about writer's block and our never-ending insecurities about not being good enough, or about not having anything to write about, or not being able to do justice to what would have been the perfect subject. Or maybe that's just me.
That's the difficulty of treating literature like a romantic relationship, I guess. There's too much of an emotional involvement. Sometimes I think I can just call it off, and work on my other (unfortunately nonexistent) talents. But no matter how crappy my work gets, I can't not write.
At the other end of the spectrum, I think about writing for a living. I almost tried—I got accepted for a writing internship at an awesome company, but I didn't confirm my slot. Mostly that was because I was waiting for my dream company (which did not turn out well), and partly it was because I was afraid. To be fair, the company knew what they had coming. I was asked to bring some writing samples (and one or two, I picked out from this blog). I guess they kind of liked it, or found it free of glaring errors at the very least. But I chickened out, because—as with everything else in my life—I'm afraid of not living up to some self-imposed, insecurity-born standard.
(I did end up in an equally awesome company where I had a productive and fulfilling internship experience, but that's a completely different blog post.)
So I guess in reality, this is partly about me and writing, and partly about me and the fears that I have yet to conquer. Well I'd better conquer them fast because I have no room to be afraid. There's quite some responsibility resting on my shoulders this year: an org to dedicate my time to, and a long list of people—with me at the top—who are expecting me to finish that gosh-darned thesis, no matter what it fcking takes, man. Then we'll graduate happily ever after—or at least I'll be happy for no longer than a month. I'm giving myself that much time to take a break, and then I'll find a job.
But that's all future talk. I'll tell you all about those bridges when I get there. Because I sure as hell will keep writing. After all, if literature is a romantic relationship with words, then maybe if I stop trying so hard, the stories themselves will find me.
[That cute little girl in the photo is Yana, my two year-old cousin.]
I'm tired of a life lived through your stories. I'm weary of the details of a good time or an annoying day where I'm always a spectator and never a character; the only reason they matter is because you matter.
