I can sit here in my little la la land world and be all dreamy about writing and feel like I have all this free time to really freelance or I can find a big girl job that is M-F, 8-5. I feel like I'm settling on a career I won't be passionate about, but I just can't get myself going. It's this fear thing. So, I end up in these jobs where I feel stifled, because what I really want to do, is write, 24/7.
So, what is it about writing? Why have I spent the last two years holding back and not lived up to the promise that I have given myself? It's this self deprecating fear of failure. It's me feeling like I am not going to be good enough, even if you tell me a million times that I am.
Let me tell you a little story, about my writing self esteem... I'm in college. I'm attending Iowa State University (Go Clones!), sitting in the hardest English class I've ever taken in my life. I'm half-ass paying attention to the lecture, until my prof decides to veer of the subject of Jack Karouac to hand out packets of current scholarships that the English department has available. I perk up, I love free money.
Out of the three scholarships available, and a two week deadline approaching, I apply for the simplest one, the poetry scholarship. Now, I do this out of a mind set of fuck it, why the hell not. I knew, I KNEW that there would be no way I would ever get the scholarship, but I felt it as if I would officially know how terrible I suck at writing and find an excuse to go back into Architecture. I specifically wanted this particular professor I hated to tell me how much I suck, as he would judge the shit out of me.
Three poems submitted and I forget about the whole ordeal, until I was called into my advisor's office. My advisor is a nasty woman, the kind of literary who has pretentious books and stacks of important papers laid out on her desk. I sit across from her as she hands me my scholarship for some stupid poems I whipped out of my head a few days before and others that I found from my community college days.
What's funny about this, is that it reveals my confidence level about writing....
"So, did like no one apply for this scholarship or what?"
"What? No, a lot of students applied." She's annoyed with me.
"So, did the others not follow the application rules?"
"No, all the rules were followed by other students." She like really hates me right now.
"Wait, so, I like got this thing? Legitimately?"
She looks at me, gets close to my face, like she wants to end my life, and says "you got this, accept it". This is my cue to make a quick exit and say a polite, "ok, thanks.". As I walk out, I hear her say the acceptance ceremony is two days away.
I never went. I really believed that I would get up there and they would take it away from me. That it was a hoax. To this day, to this very second, I still believe there was a mistake. To this day, the story I create in my head is that the professors got bored reading through 100's of students' submissions and mine just was the one where they decided that they were bored and was all, screw this, let's just settle on this one about dead kittens and childhood recollections of snow. Done.
Story of my life (or just the writing part of it). I'll just thumb through some more of these 9-5 er jobs I hate.
man, i can relate to that so much. i am SO bad at receiving compliments! because you didn't go to the ceremony, does that mean you didn't get the scholarship they practically handed to you?? you probably should have.. what a rush, what a feed to the ego! i struggle w/ my freelancing to. between 'making it' and just bumming around. i can see how the 8-5 is a "big girl" job but i absolutely hate it. i'm too much of a free bird to go back. yet, can i truly make it as a freelancer? with my confidence (lack of)? i don't know.. i don't know.. but i'm trying. xx
Thanks for your comment! I accepted it. Really didn't have a choice, they applied it to my tuition even though I bailed on the ceremony. Not that I would have turned down a handout. Just didn't want to make a big show of it. :)
8-5 jobs in an office suck, I agree I'm too much of a free spirit too.
It seems we are all "trying", such is life.