I’m
one of those people who can’t stop thinking. The only escape from my own
thoughts is to read a book, watch a movie, or play a video game. Staying busy
in general typically calms my mind, but it doesn’t stop the background
processing. Of course, the worst is when I am alone, both figuratively and
literally. The voices won’t quit rushing through my skull, mentally blinding me
to everything around me. I will be thinking so much that I cannot concentrate
on any one thought. It feels like a giant migraine without the physical side
effects.
What’s
bothering me now, though, is this idea that I can no longer write. I want to be
a novelist, an accomplished author. I don’t necessarily want to make tons of
money from my writing; it would be great however if I could make a living off
of writing. Though I have written many a short story and poem, I have yet to
write a novel. Granted, I am only twenty-one years of age. Regardless, it is
something that eats at my soul. This idea that writing is one of the only things
I am good at, and I feel like I am losing the skill. Perhaps, I am losing the
drive. But when I look at my blank Microsoft Word document, it’s as if I’ve had
my hand cut off, as if I am bleeding my heart onto the floor instead of the
screen. Imagine a jack in the box that, when you turn the crank, never opens. I
am a machine in which all the gears turn perfectly, but no result is produced.
I am a waste of space. I have no worth. Because I identify myself as a writer,
and if I cannot write or do not write, then I am not a writer, and therefore I
am nothing at all.
So what is the solution? Write? At times, the answer is that
I can, but I won’t. And others, it’s that I will, but I can’t.
Or maybe the solution is to explore other options and
opportunities with which to gauge my self-worth.
But, you see…that is
not an option. Because my name is Montanna Fay Wilber III, and I am a writer.
And write I can. Write I must. And write I will.
