…
…
.
Okay, here goes.
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I am a writer.
I am a journalist.
The former I have always been. The latter I have decided to become.
I’ve said it. I’ve claimed both words. Now they are mine.
I need to sleep now, because I’m tired and once my head is on that pillow, my eyes will close, my brain will fog over and I will sleep, peacefully. Probably there will be strange dreams with no purpose but that’s OK. I told my mother about the hallucinations today. I don’t want to worry her but then… sometimes I have to.
Until tomorrow, I remain… a writer.
…
It is tomorrow. Today. I’ve mowed some of the lawn, I’ve made a quiche for a family gathering later, I’ve had coffee and coffee and coffee and I’ve clenched my teeth and for the first time in a long time found myself under the covers, eyes towards the wall, staring into space, scared. Anxious. Again. It’s alright… it has to be. There are reasons, which is better than there being no reasons. I’m in a phase of letting go, of detangling myself.
…
I just had a short conversation with my mother. I cried. Sometimes I cry at the very thought of some day not being able to cry in her company. She’s my best friend. And now I’m crying again. Finding my future is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and I’m so sad and confused and emotional but UNABLE to give up. Or in, to the easy way out. On Monday I’ll be face to face with my boss and I don’t know what I’ll say to him. It would be easy to shake his hand and say ‘thank you’ when he says ‘welcome back’. And it can cost me dearly if I do. I’m a circle trying to fit into a rectangle and my problem is that I’m able to do so. Slowly, as I innocently, stupidly, squeeze with too much force, the rectangle shapes me, shaves thin slices off of my sides, so thin I don’t notice them until I’m comfortably stuck at the bottom, a small circle in a big rectangle, screaming for someone to lift me out. ‘Help. This was not supposed to happen’.
Well, I’m out, now. I should have undone what I was doing before I ended up where I did but that is a nonsense way of thinking. Because I never would have. I’ve got to know myself better in the last two months than in the past 6 years. And no, I’m not in a hurry to try to fit back into that fucking rectangle. It’s not the rectangle’s fault. We’re just too different. I can make it happy but it can’t make me happy.
…
A week ago I went to a festival. And I wrote an article for an online media website about it. And as I sat in the press tent, making notes, staring at my story, I felt calm and at home. It’s where I belong. It feels so silly to have not have taken this seriously before, properly seriously, but then, when the fuck do I ever take anything seriously that has anything to do with myself?
It’s here, by the way, if you want to read it. I also have a film blog. I do write. And I do take it seriously, it’s maybe the one thing I always have. I just… never wanted to involve anyone else in it. Because I don’t write for you. Them. And I never will but I don’t consider that a bad thing. But I think maybe now that I have found the courage to identify with what I really am (I still flinch, I still feel embarrassed, ‘a writer’, how fucking pretentious, OMG get over it, though and that’s right now), then… then, well… things can only get better?
It’s a gorgeous day. I need to feel the sand between my tanned toes, the cold ocean licking them, the wind in my curls, spotting beautiful shells between bunches of black sea weed. I need to drive. Go. GO GO GO.
…
I’m a writer. I’m a journalist.
5 A.M Decisions 