5/11/16

10:23 PM

Everyone says that it is a blessing to know what you want to do in life early on. They say that you are one of the rare few if you have an idea as to where you are going and where you want to end up. They say that everything is easy for you now, your life is on track, and you don’t have to worry about a single thing because after all, your life is basically set in stone.

I say that yes, it is a blessing. It is a blessing that I’ve known ever since I was in Kindergarten that I want to be a writer. In fact, I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t want to be a writer, except maybe in pre-school when I desperately wanted to be a dance teacher just so I could sit and watch other people dance rather than having to do all the work myself.

Yes, it is a blessing, but it is not easy. No matter what anyone tells you and no matter what you see it as, it is nowhere near being easy. In fact, in my opinion, it’s the opposite. All my life, I’ve been looking for signs that may point me in the right direction. I’ve been looking for signs that tell me, “Hey, this is what you’re supposed to do with your life!”. The reality is, no matter the amount of times I have tried to believe in different meaningless things, I have never come across any kind of indicator that would guide me.

You might be a little confused. If I know what I want to do already, why do I need a sign, right? Wrong. Yes, I know I want to write to my hearts content for the rest of my life, I want to come across to people as someone who embraces her passion with open and wide arms. But I’m not someone who will sit down, write for a while, close my notebook, and be done with it.

I’ve always had dreams as to what I want to be known for. A novel, a magazine, a movie, a play, a blog, it’s never really clicked with me. I’ve tested out each and every single one, but I could never bring myself to finish any of it. I have tried writing numerous novels and the only one I ever finished was one when I was in 3rd grade about 12-year-old identical twins who happen to be allowed to go on impromptu trips around the world whenever they feel like it. Like I said, I’m a dreamer.

I suppose the only thing that I have consistently been thinking about is this blog. Only recently, last summer, did I realize that although I do love creative writing, journalism is what I want to do in life, perhaps own a magazine one day. And this blog seemed like the absolute perfect way to start it.

At first, I was beyond excited to write for this blog. I was on vacation at the time, and I visited a nearby orphanage, interviewed the owner, and wrote an article all in one day. That’s how enthusiastic I was. After that, I visited a food pantry and interviewed the owner. The same owner told me about another one of her projects, and so I wrote about that too. All three of these articles were written only with heart and enthusiasm, although there was some more procrastination involved than before. But that’s just natural, you had to expect it.

And then after that, well, I ran out of topics to write about. I just didn’t have to motivation to go out and find another admirable thing to interview someone about and I didn’t have the excitement to write another article- it felt like a chore. I was exhausted from having so much responsibility (I had no idea what responsibility even meant a couple months ago) that once I was done with the three articles, I felt like my job was done. Why? I’m still not sure, and my parents like to blame it on laziness, but I like to blame it on too much expectation from others that had me too scared to keep going, like what if it’s not as good as the one before? What if no one reads it? What if my only readers are coming from people who are my parents’ friends and feel like they have to comment? Now don’t get me wrong on the last question, I appreciate all the feedback I can get and I love when people comment things on my posts (it makes me happier than you know) but you gotta wonder- would these people have commented if I was just some blog they found when they were browsing Google?

Now lets get to the four letters I spent so much time re-reading and editing for my creative writing class in school: they weren’t meant to be for the blog, but I figured they fit within the context of one, so I posted them. So let me emphasize that they were for school.

After that, my only blog-worthy pieces of writing have been either scribbled down the side of a notebook or conjured up in my head. Until my sign finally came to me. The indicator that I was hoping for, the sign, the giant arrow telling me where to go. Okay, I’m exaggerating, and I probably jinxed it now too, but basically, I figured out what I want to do- for now. I’m hoping it will stick with me for the long run. The sign didn’t come to me in a discreet way as if it was fate, no, it just occurred to me when I woke up. I put the two things I loved together and there it was. I don’t want to spoil the secret and say what it is, so I’ll keep it on the down-low for a while, but I have big things planned. Now all I need for is someone to help me execute the plan. After all, there’s only so much I can do. I’m 16.

But anyways, this is just an informal way of me saying that I’m back on track! Hopefully this time I’ll stick with what I’m doing and I won’t let myself get sucked into a new TV show or just life in general and I’ll keep up with it because this is the most detailed planning I’ve done for anything ever since I learned that I was going to be seeing Justin Bieber front row (the concert was last week, and I have no words).