Cordially Invited

I’m a writer who isn’t writing – or at least, not in any real way. I’m embarrassed to walk past my bookshelves. Murakami mocks me; Hemingway offers to pour me a drink. My inner critic chimes in: “Where’s that clever erudition you were once praised for? No wit to share today? Do you really need to watch Real Housewives again?” And then there are the real-life inquiries: “When’s your book going to be published? What’s the next one about? Have you considered self-publishing? Do you really need to watch Real Housewives again?”

The excuse I’ve been giving as to why i’ve not made more progress – that I’m burnt out – is starting to lose its bite. I keep staring at the solution straight in the face, write, and still choose to do anything else.

I suppose I am writing. I write essays in my head every night, little lullabies to myself. But the novels feel too heavy to edit. The articles get coated in my brain’s red pen of disparagement.

All I’ve ever known to do is write. Ocassionally I dance and act, but I justify my lack of success in those ares due to my natural turnout being weak and that my drama teacher put me in the ensemble one too many times. Truthfully, I’m just not very good. Maybe I’m not very goot at writing either.

The problem is, I can’t let go of the dream. I’ve even prayed, “If being an author—living the big life I envision—isn’t for me, please let me stop dreaming of it.” Yet here I am, still wishing for it more than anything. I crave that kind of love more than I crave romance.

Of course, I’ve dreamt of my wedding since I was a little girl. But I’ve also dreamt of director’s chairs, book tours, acceptance speeches, lecture halls, and making talk-show hosts chuckle – more often, actually. Still, time moves faster with each passing year, and I’ve yet to wear white at an altar or banter with Jimmy Fallon.

What if this is it? What if I’m just another alum professors once thought would be someone, who never became anyone? At my ten-year reunion, my only brag might be that I can do a VLOOKUP in Excel, and that the Gen Z barista with micro-bangs complimented my eyeliner twice.

I fear my life is happening somewhere else without me – like a party thrown in my honor that I never arrived at. The guests carry on without me, of course. Why let perfectly good appetizers go to waste?

And honestly? If that’s the case – so be it.

But no. That isn’t the case. It simply can’t be. I can’t, in good conscience, claim that I’ve given it my all or that I was some sort of prodigy of the pen. When I glance longingly at my untouched laptop my mind likes to taunt me with such false tales, but it’s a lesser story.

I am simply someone who cares deeply—and who failed, again and again, unabashedly. My writing used to be 80% typos and fluff, and 20% promise. I’ve since managed to shift the ratio to about 40/60. But, even still, it is within the past year that I’ve mustered the ability to sit still long enough to read my own manuscripts.

I am a writer. I am writing. I am a writer who needs to stop thinking that they are worthy of the bookshelf simply because they’ve written a few bylines. I have been trapped in the hamster wheel of wanting success right now and being flummoxed that it hasn’t just arrived yet. Just like love – I’m fairly certain success comes when you’re heads down focusing on what you care about most and not begging for it.

I wasn’t good enough. But that isn’t to say, I can’t be good enough. That isn’t to say, I will be good enough either. It is to say that maybe I should try, really try, before I say woe is me.

I used to look to these groups of artists I adjacently knew and long to be in their world. It has just recently dawned on me that I can simply go be in their world, but I have to do that. It is on me, and I can do that. I just have to stop waiting on a pumpkin to turn into a carriage any magically whisk me to this other world.

The first round of drinks has only just been poured at the party I’m expected at? Okay, great, I’ll work harder so the second round tastes even sweeter. Besides, I make an excellent fashionably late entrance.