"A dancer dies twice -- once when they stop dancing, and this first death is more painful." -- Martha Graham

Although I cannot call myself a dancer, I am a writer. This quote applies to any kind of artist -- regardless of the medium. It could be dance, writing, visual arts, music, film. But when you stop practicing or creating in your art, it is like a death of sorts.

I have called myself a writer for years. When I was still in elementary school, I would write an animal adventure in a composition notebook. In middle school, I wrote fan fiction online and filled up even more notebooks- spiral notebooks, half-empty notebooks from school, anything I could get my hands on. I filled up with pages with my thoughts, stories, and poetry. Writing has helped me through the hardest times in my life and continues to do so now. It's the way I make sense of my life, of my experiences, of my pain and my happiness. My desire to write has motivated my academic decisions thus far, and in everything I do I always keep up the hope of one day publishing my creative writing.

But as I'm going through college, I can't help but think -- what if one day I stop feeling this way? What if I lose my desire to write, what one day the words just stop coming? How would I reorient myself without the one thing that has in a way, been my guiding light all these years? It's truly hard for me to imagine my life without it. At times, I can't help but put myself down for having artistic aspirations- sometimes I think that they're a waste of time, that they won't get me anywhere, or that my writing simply isn't good enough to be "commercially successful."

That's why Black Swan's lyrics resonated so heavily with me:

"The heart no longer races / When hearing the music play / Oh that would be my first death / I been always afraid of / If this can no longer resonate with me / If this can no longer make my heart vibrate / Perhaps I die my first death / But what if that moment's right now / Right now."

What if I am already starting to lose my passion, little by little? If you're any kind of artist, you may have asked yourself this question. Is it inevitable that part "growing up" is losing our motivation to create, forgetting what it felt like to be excited to write, dance, draw, or compose? These are questions that we as artists must face every day, as we try to decide how much time we want to spend creating -- that is if we even want to create at all.

I really resent the idea that giving up on your hopes and dreams is a part of "growing up." But I am forced to admit, that to a certain extent, it can be. Like many others, I hope to be able to pursue my passion while also wanting to have financial security and stability. And it's a delicate balance.

But even if I never become published like I hope to be, even if no one other than my friends, family, and professors ever read my writing, I hope that I will continue to write. I like to think that my tradition of buying a brand new Moleskine at the beginning of each year will continue, each one a chronicle of a year in my life- my ideas, prose, poetry, and random thoughts. I hope that I'll keep the notebooks that have been piling up since middle school, and keep adding to the collection. I hope to be able one day sit down and look through them all, remembering the happiness, the love, the sadness, the disappointment, all part of the journey I made to myself, trying to find my place in this world. It is a journey I am still making, every single day.

Even if my future career doesn't employ my writing skills, as I had hoped, I believe I'll always be a writer. I think I always have been.