It was my birthday this past week, actually as I am writing this it is my birthday today. Happy Birthday to me. I turned thirty two years old, and that astonishes me. Somedays I still feel like I’m eighteen years old questioning the direction of my life. I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of reflecting around this time of year.
This year, I questioned a lot of things. Like the many reasons interviews are the worst experiences for me. Who decided that a fifteen minute talk with an absolute stranger was the best way to sort out a candidate? If you haven’t guessed I am not the Meryl Streep of interviews, I am more like the Nicholas Cage, screaming incoherently not being able to control the volume of my voice. I like Nicholas Cage by the way, but I think he has been phoning it in for awhile now because he can. He is Nicholas fucking Cage after all.
Anyways…
The other day I was thinking about the things I loved now versus the things I loved as a teenager. Back then, I was obsessed with music and above all else, singing. I started my singing career by winning a spot in Honor’s Choir in sixth grade. Choir class, especially in high school, was the one place where I felt I could be myself. One time, I auditioned for a solo in “Blue Moon” were I had to scat. SCAT. I was fifteen and didn’t even know what scatting was, but I did the best I could and apparently I was the least horrendous because I got the part! I still remember that solo, because I practiced it a thousand times in my bedroom, driving my family insane. My parents probably thought I was possessed by the devil with all the “bee bobs and dadas” flowing out of my bedroom. Though I was unsure about my abilities to perform, our choir was filled with like minded kids that loved singing just as much as I did; it was a bully free zone. The bullies were usually outside of the classroom waiting to make fun of you because you had a passion for something creative. I never understood that, until I grew up and realized the real world can be the exact same way.
It seems like everyone I know questions why I would choose something so hard like being a writer. I see their point, sometimes. We live in a society where we are told to be more “realistic” and to “be happy with just having a job.” I find myself questioning if I made the right choice ALL. THE. TIME.
While I love writing, I question whether I love it as much as I loved choir when I was a kid. Whether I have the talent and confidence I somehow found in that classroom. Whether I will ever find a safe place to be myself again, as safe as that room filled with twenty teenagers belting out a version of “Blue Moon” at the top of their lungs.
What do you most reflect or question when looking at your past? I would love to know! Thanks for reading.
Unbearably Awkward. 