Writer Diary: The Wannabe

The pandemic came like a cold splash of water in the face after partying all night. Nobody outside of the government could have anticipated the debilitating vice grip it would have on the world and all the functions that kept society moving. We went from packing ourselves into crowded subway cars like eager sardines, to posting videos of us yelling at people to back up and give us 6ft of social distancing. We were not ready for this sudden demand for change and what it meant to our own private lives. This didn’t just shake up the workplace but has shifted the minds of every employee and employer. Businesses are now wondering if they need to have so many people on payroll and the employees are wondering if this job feeds their desire to feel purposeful in their existence. Relationships are being challenged as we near the 4-month mark, if they haven’t already been destroyed, and personal images have been shattered. That is where my problem is, self-realization of how I have procrastinated my way to the brink of oblivion and now must pull myself from the edge of obscurity and failure. Harsh words, I know, but this stay at home edict has made me have to face the lazy and often negative version of myself more directly than just a simple nod of acknowledgement in the mornings before work.

I’m a writer, not by profession, but a writer by one of the most fortunate means you could ask for; talent. I was a always a writer, creating my first childhood stories as soon as I could write and not always in a straight line. I imagined and brought to life creatures, heroes, worlds, that captivated my readers, and once they got past the poor grammar and misspellings they fell in love with the stories, often asking me to continue them next writing time in class and hanging them on their refrigerators at home. I loved writing but not enough to pursue it as a career or life goal, it was just a hobby. Now, as I have been kept at home for about 4 months, not working but still receiving my full check every week, I realize how much time I have wasted not moving in my creativity; time that I can never get back and have to accept as a loss. Being a writer is not just about writing, it is a lifestyle, a way of thinking and being, something I think I have down for the most part, just not the part that matters the most, the actual writing. I find myself sitting to type up something with this fire of creative fervor that will burn for a couple of weeks before starting to die down and then completely extinguishing. It is a pretty depressing thing to watch as a creative, watching as that fire of enthusiasm slowly fade away. I would love to say that life itself has played the role of the sand suffocating my passion but that would be misleading, it is more my negative thoughts playing the choking role. I often wrote for a purpose, for it to go somewhere, instead of writing to just write. I was abusing my gift and not appreciating it. You don’t use your legs only when you have somewhere to go, sometimes we just like to walk without direction. You don’t open your eyes only where there is something to see, sometimes we like to look without being called to. Writing, or any talent, deserves the same appreciation.

It is never too late to acknowledge this and make a change in your approach to your gifts, but it can be too late to watch them make an impact in the world the way they could have had you begun this process of change sooner. That is likely my biggest fear, never achieving anything with these gifts, but just having them sit there gaining dust as I admire what they could have been. This time indoors, watching as humanity tries to rediscover itself and come to grips with its own reality, no matter how ugly, has demanded me to see these mistakes in my own life and now, hopefully, move in a better direction. I want to be more than a wannabe writer. I guess that starts with, well, writing.

What are your passions? What are your gifts? Are you feeding them? I will need to ask myself this regularly and hold myself accountable. In some way this pandemic has made us all accountable, just hope I stay dedicated to the process.