It's strange when you've realized you've grown up a bit. That the current path you're taking is not one you would encourage on anyone. Despite people asking you how they can do it too. Instead you discourage them as much as possible because it's hard and lonely. Your discouragement slowly resembles the same negative passion your husband exudes when discussing the best method to vegetarianism.
To others a path of a writer is fantastical and free. You are breaking away from being just a cog in a wheel that turns from 9 to 5. You are living the dream. You are taking the leap. But this is not a life for others no matter how bad they want it. Unless you are able to support yourself to live, whether by means through a significant other or family, by all means follow those dreams. If you are able to support yourself and not worry earning the next paycheck, by all means follow them. But it is your own opinion that you feel that unless all other life priorities are taking care of, does one finally have the permission of persuing dreams.
But who's dream is it? Don't those other people realize how hard it is to occupy yourself when it was formally replaced with daily tasks that would eventually improve said company and profit. Now you have to decide yourself how to be productive. But this does not mean you should sleep late and do nothing.
Right now it is definitely not a dream to you. Yes, you don't have to worry about paying rent or food. However you've sat at the computer with a blank page for days. Writing is an old friend you haven't caught up with in years, and meeting up again is awkward. You have no words, and what words you have to say to do not carry beyond a page. What happened to the days when you use to write for hours and days?
You are the bird with the broken wing. And relearning how to fly is hard. But you do it because you have to and its been in a sling for too long. You've forgotten what it was like to experience life for the sake of the experience; to say you've done this or that. In college you promised to live your life this way because that was how you got a good story.
“Write what you know.” Isn't that what they said?
But you've graduated and you've forgotten that promise, so it was only natural to help someone else's path than your own. You wanted to reconnect but the sight of paycheck was just as pleasing. You could afford Anna Sui and Betsey Johnson now. Having someone else give you a to-do list is so much easier. The only real task was to figure out the most efficient method to accomplish them. Then on a Tuesday while sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum waiting to go to the Alexander McQueen exhibit, a thought stuck out in your mind.
Wouldn't it be nice to write about this?
You wondered why you never just sat down and enjoyed the air, observed the people walking to their mysterious destinations. You always had to be on the move -- even when you ate by yourself. You could never relax or sit down for a breath. You weren't a tourist. Tourists enjoyed the city without the concern of being somewhere more important. That's why they stand in the middle of the street to photography their family. They do not know better.
New Yorkers take it for granted. Perhaps that's why they live here; to being around the myriad of metropolitan opportunities without taking advantage of them. They exist within walking distance and available to them at anytime; they just choose not to. Ironically you are also a New Yorker, but now you have to time to experience it. And while you've forgotten how to write, you miss it. You are unsure of what the end of the means of writing is quite yet. All you know is to keep writing and hope something comes out of it. This takes time.
Time which you need to reconnect with the world on a different level. You need to remember what it meant to be the observer and watcher. Before you were too concerned about the next workday when the previous has yet to end. You realize you must aimlessly take a walk. You need to go outside because you know you are unproductive when your only company are the refridgerator hums and a blank white page.
Right now you can't write because you feel you have nothing to write about.
Without writing you must experience something everyday in hopes that you will write about it later. Without experiencing life you cannot write about it later.
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