I don’t know if I’ve struggled more with my identity than the average person or if I am just more open about admitting it. It was too tiring to pretend like I had life figured out. My “plan” was more like a vision board of really big ideas with missing steps on how to get there. I believe in the power of visualization, but I believe you have to visualize what you’re going to do tomorrow. The big picture is too overwhelming and it defeated me for years. I wanted things, dreamed of a life that was too big and bold for one small person.
But more than just struggling with my identity, I’ve also battled fear. Fear has been a crippling factor in my life from very early on. I had wanted things for myself, but I wanted to keep them safe in my mind where they could not be tainted by judgement or ridicule. I stopped myself from trying before was an opportunity for snickering. I heard laughter and faces in the back of my head in a really cartoonish way. I buried myself in my mind for protection.
My mind filled up with stories and day dreams that escaped reality. It was difficult for me to focus on real life. Close friends believed I was flakey and spacey, but I just happened to live inside a different world inside of my mind that I enjoyed a little bit more. I started feeling content with mediocracy because I had an escape. Alone time was never lonely. I felt relived when people left me unburdened so my mind could drift and play. I started to wonder, “can’t this be enough?”
But I had no outlet. Artists have a way of expressing themselves in one way or another, but I had no medium. I would not be a great painter, singer, drawer. I have no knack for instruments and I was not musically inclined. I am a mediocre poet. What is my talent? To dream.. I am a professional day dreamer?
As I got older, outside pressure started intruding in my safe place. The walls were crumbling down. I had adult responbilities that forced me to live inside the real world and my mental play time was strangled. And I was force to ask myself, daily and painfully, “What is my purpose? What is my talent?”
I can dream a good dream and I can connect with people. That’s all I understand about myself.
I tried to take my mind to pen and paper, but I could not adequately write the visions in my mind. And again, I started to feel like I had a useless talent. What good is dreaming of stories all day long if you can’t transfer them into words? I must have written a a million stories in my life time that are trapped in my brain. It flows in my mind, it’s articulate and well thoughout. It’s powerful and creative. Whenever I try to transfer it, the girl inside my mind who’s screaming “you’re saying it wrong!”
I often wish they had something that could attach to my brain to siphon all my words out of my head and into my paper. But I had an epiphany, I am expecting to be brilliant at something that I have never really tried to do before. I never cut myself slack and let myself be terrible until I’m bad. Bad until I’m eh. Eh until I’m decent. Decent until I’m good. Good until I’m great. Great until I’m brilliant. It’s like that damn vision board again. I have expectations right off the bat to come out swinging with the NYT best seller that I never let myself take the first step. The vision is too big. I create goals that are beasts that ultimately stagnate and defeat me. I have taken down the vision board with photos of big dreams outside of the realm of reality for today. I don’t mean that in a never going to happen sense, but it’s never going to happen today. I started replacing those beastly goals with questions like “What do I want to accomplish today? Where do I want to be tomorrow?” And I started making goals like “try to write one 3 page story” vs “write a best selling novel”, “join an acting class” vs. “be an oscar winning actress”, “write a short film” instead of “write & sell a screenplay”.
It started to change me because instantly I had purpose, I had a step, I knew what to do. I designated time to sit in write instead of looking at student vision board that told me one day I’ll be a best selling author, but never actually sat down to author anything. The more honest I was to myself about my self defeating habits, the more free I felt to live inside the real world. I wasn’t hiding anymore to be safe. I am channeling it to find whatever it is talent I have and do something about it.
I go to bed fufilled by writing 3 pages of nonsense just because it was more than I did yesterday. I got something down, I let it out somehow. Even if it sucks, even if its total and complete non-sensical garbage, I tried to write it down instead of imprisioning it in my mind and that makes me proud.
In the mean time, I do what I need to do to survive and sometimes that doesn’t always make sense from the outside. But I’m putting faith in the process & I am trusting myself.
