Lately I've been wondering who I really am. I haven't written in a while because, truth be told, I've been drowning in stress and had no reserves to draw from to put towards anything else. But I've also been wondering if I'll ever really make anything of myself anyway.
I think often about this dream I have of writing books. This dream...this dream...this pipe dream.
Yes, I often think it's a pipe dream. Because every time I sit down and try to write a book I fail. I stare at a blank page. I have nothing in my head. It's like a white, hollow room that just echoes behind my eyeballs and then suddenly goes black.
I'm not sure what the problem is and, after more than a decade of trying to figure it out, I'm starting to get tired of making an effort. Currently my only explanation is that I'm just not cut out to be a working writer. Maybe not anymore, maybe not ever, maybe I never was.
Maybe I can write poetry and that will be enough. I mean I enjoy writing poetry, at least when I have some mojo left over from my day to put pen to paper, but I can't buy groceries with poetry. I can't survive on poetry. I can't make a career out of poetry.
Honestly, the only way I can eat and be a (non-business) writer is to write best-selling fiction or a really badass nonfiction book that somehow hits people's souls. And I just don't know that I can do either one of those things. In fact, I feel pretty convinced lately that I can't.
So I find myself wondering this: if I just write for the sake of writing, and if it's not my career or my identity, then what the hell should I be doing with my time? Should I be working whatever random, good paying job comes along so that I can buy food and pay rent and take a few trips, but that doesn't really fulfill me? (Current life situation.)
I'm wondering if I just don't have a dream anymore to sustain me. If I've just given up on the idea entirely, or if I've failed enough at it that I've resigned myself to pursuing other interests. Or, maybe, my terror of being poor again overwhelms my desire to create meaning where there currently is none.
So here I am. I'm 35 (for just under four more months) and I'm completely and utterly lost again! I've stopped working through my Artist's Way program just because of stress, landlord issues, house issues, health problems, elderly cat health problems, and a number of other obligations. I suppose I could get back to it. But lately I find myself saying, "What's the point? Is there a point?"
I wish I could find my sweet spot, where I'd get paid to write in whatever way I'm talented at in writing (what is that again?). But right now I'm a little despondent. I don't think it's there. I just don't. And I don't know where to look next.
