My Gallimaufry

The basic gist behind today’s challenge is: if you have written, then you are already a writer.  Now all you have to do is declare that you are a writer.  Because in order to believe it, you have to claim it.

Here’s the scary part:

“Declare you’re a writer.

Not just to your wall or computer or notebook, but to an actual person or institution. Someone or something you’re scared of — this could be a person who might reject or judge you, a family member who may misunderstand you, or a publisher who could discredit you. But tell them and tell them now.

Do it with pride and boldness. Write about it, tweet it about, record a video if you want. The more outrageous it is, the more likely you are to believe. This is what we’re trying to do here: convince ourselves that we have the right to pick up the pen.”

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Hokay, so: All my life I have said “I want to be an author.”  That’s easy to say.  I tend to use wishy-washy speech so that I don’t accidentally offend people by being too bold (more on that later).  So saying “I am a writer” instead of “I want to be a writer” is a big step for me.  The same thing applies to writing music.  It’s a lot easier to say “I want to be a film composer” than “I am a film composer.” (I wrote for my first film a couple years ago: it was a craptastic local indie film, but it was a movie nonetheless.)  Other examples: “I was a music major” vs. “I am a professional musician.” “I want to act” vs. “I am an actress.”

As you can tell, I have a lot of interests and a lot of things that I desire for my life.  But I’ve always heard things like “Don’t get your hopes up too high, we don’t want to see you get disappointed and hurt.”  “That’s an okay dream, but make sure to put your focus on getting a good job that will pay for your health insurance.”  Et cetera.  Many variations on the above.  So that has dissuaded me from claiming these things as my identity.

I’ve also struggled my whole life in a dysfunctional familial relationship (not my parents, they’re great) where every time I would stand for something I would get verbally harassed and bullied until I gave up my position and conceded to her point of view.  Hence being afraid of being too “bold,” as mentioned above.  Due to a particularly bad spell in this unavoidable relationship during the past couple of years, I have turned into a spineless jellyfish and am now trying to grow a spine again (some of Madame Pomfrey’s bone-growth potion would be nice right about now :-P ).  Consequently I have spells where I feel like I have to apologize for even existing, much less doing something of consequence with my life.

And finally, because I have so many interests, and so many things that I want to do and BE, I wonder if I’m trying to do too much.  I wonder if I can really say that I am a writer when trying to be a composer might take away time or focus that I would need to really be a writer.  I’m afraid of becoming a Jill-of-all-trades and DOING a lot of stuff but never truly BECOMING what I want to be.

But I guess the only thing I can do is try.  I can try.  I can claim my identities, and strive toward growing into them.  The worst thing that would happen would be that I would fail to achieve all of them.  But that is a lot less horrible than not ever achieving any of them.

So here goes:

I am a writer.

I am a composer.

I am a professional musician.

I am an actress.

I am myself, and will no longer apologize for that.  Maybe soon I can find enough courage to declare these things to people that I meet face to face.