Apr 23 2007
My co-dependent lover
When I graduated college and got my first job, one of the first things I did was buy myself a new book from a chain bookstore. Not a used one or a borrowed one, but a new one that was just released, that I wanted to read that very moment, that was my very own. The next thing I did was buy a full-price skirt from Meghan Kinney. A new one from that season, not one on sale. With these two purchases, I felt like I made it, like I had taken my first step toward being a self-sufficient, self-actualized working adult.
In a few months time, I gravitated back to used books. I missed the musty smell of the secondhand stores, the digging around for titles I forgot I wanted to read. I gravitated back to clothing on sale and secondhand skirts that smelled like the secondhand books.
Today, I’m back at the public library, to the anticipation of seeing whether a book will be on the shelf, to waiting patiently in the queue for a book to be returned, to the frustration of trying to finish a book within the one-week deadline, and often accruing late fees. I write off these late fees as my donation to a public library system that sustained me throughout my childhood.
Not much surprise here: with my free time ticking away, with competitive, grueling days and sleepless nights imminent, my drive to write has picked up. The desire and dreams of writing full time have come alive, taunting me, guilt-tripping me, demanding of me why I’m about to sign away the next few years of my life to something other than writing.
My writing muse is passive aggressive. When I had all the time in the world for it, it did nothing, it asked nothing of me, and it gave me nothing. So, I detached from it and listened to what else my soul needed. My soul told me I also needed human contact; I needed to be out of the office, on my feet, helping people, and talking to people; I needed to keep learning and keep being challenged. But now…oh now that I’ve committed to myself to humanitarian work, this muse that is like a passive-aggressive-fickle-co-dependent-lover keeps calling me, trying to entice me back with confidence/ego boosters and whispers of story lines and must-write characters.
My writing and humanitarian selves have been going at it these past few days. They keep me up at night or wake me in the middle of the night. But the writing muse is the worst. It has me second-guessing myself and fantasizing of a drastic change in course. Like that old co-dependent lover who shows up out of the blue, it teases and I’m tempted.
But TODAY I realized I’m older and wiser now. I’ve been around the block, so to speak, and I know myself better. I can see there’s a very good chance that if I (again) give myself all the time in the world to write, I just won’t do it. That’s the sad truth of it. For me, for now, it’s the angst of not having time to write that drives me. What a messed up psychology! I know that is certainly not a recipe for success.
But I can’t keep going back to the writing muse when it shouts for attention. When I decided to try nursing, there were many good reasons for it and many hours of agonizing decision-making that led me to that choice. I’m not going to throw that all away now, not before I give it a real try.
The idea of ‘being a writer’ may be more appealing to me than actually doing the hard work to get there. I think I’ve already given myself ample opportunity to take it seriously, and I didn’t capitalize on it. I can’t blame it on systems of inequality, parental pressure , ignorance or lack of resources anymore. Most of those barriers were probably real in college, but not now. I’ve had years to try it and I didn’t. Why? I don’t know. Could be sheer laziness, could be fear of success, or just plain fear. But I don’t deserve any more excuses. I am committed to a new path now and I’m going to see it through. If my writing muse is my true love, it will stick by me and be there for me during and after school.