When I was younger, I wanted to be a lot of things. I would also try an obsessive amount of sports and clubs trying to find one simplistic activity that I was decent at. I would also give up on a lot of things when I wasn’t good at them. If I wasn’t good at them, I would turn into a frustrated child that we all got to be at some point in our young ages.
A frustrated child that some adults still are to this day. In the third grade for a long period of time, I wanted to be a writer. By a long period of time, I mean about two months. For a third grader, that was an eternity. I would write in a meager, blue notebook that had a purple butterfly plastered on the front cover. I remember this exact notebook because I hated the cover. I was very much a tomboy when I was younger.
My grandmother had given me the notebook and my mother stated that it would make her happy to see me doing something I love in something she had given to me. I would write about the non-existing adventures my friends and I would have. I wrote with horrible grammar, a very limited vocabulary, and a story line that ultimately had no line at all. But it made me ecstatic to stand at the front of the class and read my stories; stories that I begged my teacher to let me perform to my classmates. My teacher told me that I should always keep my Meraki for writing which I never understood when I was younger, but I soon found out that it meant putting a piece of your soul into everything that you love doing. It was a Greek word, and my teacher was very Greek.
This realistic dream of being a writer soon just became a dream when I was told that I would ultimately make no money doing something that I learned to love so quickly. I then told myself that I wasn't good at my skill to lessen the pain of no longer doing it. I made my brain think that it couldn’t distinguish exceptional writing to lousy writing which made all of my writing look lousy to my negative-brain.
Fast forward to the start of my senior year of high school. The year where no matter how busy you are you can always find yourself with a lot of free time. I found my free time in a blow off creative writing class. I found it effortless to press my pen to paper and create something that others found perplexing. I wrote with better grammar, a more advanced vocabulary, and story lines that made my classmates hungry for more.
Fast forward another year. I have a blog, and I find myself on the last page of a fully completed journal. I never find myself trying to write for others, and it makes me jubilant to write thoughts down and write from others perspectives. I learned that just because you may not make any money doing something and you may not be the best at it doesn't mean you should destroy it.
~Col
