Write
It’s what we do
“This too shall pass.”
An old adage and a nugget of wisdom passed on through the telling of a story by my therapist who’s been great and our working relationship’s been amazing with sessions that have been helping and it is true beneficial counsel to have been terminated by my previous therapist (female) and told to search for a male.
[Insert inside joke and too often already spoken sentiment by friends closest]
Keep writing.
That’s another nugget of wisdom so imparted and I am writing. I am writing and I am sensing a fear to be vulnerable; I am registering hesitation and a lack of trust, a thinning of faith in the world and in the words that would flow here towards that moment in the past whereupon so often I will look back on what I had written and see wonder and know understanding focused. I am now uncertain. I am now concerned. I am worried that I’ve been gone for far too long that I’ve become a stranger to craft and inspiration. But,
Fear, it’s a superpower. — Doctor Who
And I did jest with my (ex)bosses that I’d go become a superhero so, let’s deviate a little to the chosen image above. A combination of an old doodle with a resume updated set upon a template gleaned from picking up Adobe Photoshop (bless the free templates given to beginners) and figuring out a little Adobe InDesign and I’ll like to pause. To hold the horses, to look at the clouds above, to walk out a little of this fugue state of job-searching, of inane desperation to return to a sense of structure, to a need of routine that I mistakenly think can only come out of a full-time role. Because it’s okay — it’s great —and it’s important to be in the company of creative collaborative individuals and be a contributing member of society in a positive and productive manner but it’s okay, it’s okay, to breathe a little.
To remember,
My function isn’t my worth.
To know,
That I’m not just my resume.
I’d gotten so used to being a part of a team that I haven’t really been, in a long time, alone with and creating just for me. I’ve been so alarmed into finding a position that I’m not seeing the plenty opportunities already presented to me. I have a working partnership of sorts I can enter into if I just believed a little and worked at it; I have a better formed path of creating art and writing speeches real or fictional as I had believed incredible a way to function when less fearful and younger if I just be a little more disciplined and focused. I have options. So, why the panic? So, why this fear? Why the incessant need to purposefully set my attention onto distractions to avoid looking inwards?
Let’s be curious about that for a little: shame.
I’ve been playing roller coaster with my sleep cycle and I’ve been eating what’s convenient whilst exercising way too little. I’ve been hiding. I’ve been here and decidedly not here. I’ve been afraid to accept consequences and I’ve not been brave enough to acknowledge responsibility for my continued existence (within mortal reason) and I know that I’ve come by this notion before and will likely lose sight again of this marker but for now, I’m here.
You’ve been making choices out of desperation for too long. That much is obvious. You’re backing yourself into a corner. Break the pattern. Take control of your life, Todd! The instant you take control, interesting things will happen. I guarantee it. — Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (S1E1)
For the past few sessions, a recurring theme with the therapist had been my procrastination and unwillingness to write, to commit; to accept and to hone even further this will, this want and innate whimsy that writing is my outlet, that writing is my tool to bring about comfort (to myself and maybe even to others) and that passion’s really just self-discipline packaged into a big word. That it will contribute to my existence: putting thoughts into words. That maybe we won’t know where it’ll lead but it will lead somewhere, I promise: figuring out what story it is that I have within me waiting.
To be let go off by a company that’s at real risk now of going under is both a complicated thing to encounter and process. For on the one hand, I feel sad and concerned for the bosses; yet on the other, I feel relieved that I can now find new adventures.
It had been my first foray into the copywriting world and they snagged me with the job title Creative Writer and though I did — had been, might still even — apply for copywriting roles because of the possibility of financial comfort and or simply because of some obstinate ego trip where it displeases me that my professional learning journey was cut so short and so abruptly due to financial situations of the company beyond my control, perhaps — I need to listen to my motivation. I need to do the right thing and write my honest.
I really do miss the ideation sessions but I don’t think I really want to be a copywriter.
I don’t think I really want to spend my typing fingers churning out taglines and handles for events and purposes outside of my emotional self-expressions; and it doesn’t mean I won’t pick up, invest, and grow from jobs and pitches that require and stem from a copywriting nature because I’m not quite done yet honing that skill but I think it’s fact: I don’t want to be known only as a copywriter.
I want to be writer.
And I’d rather fail than pass a cheat.
Hadn’t I always said that when younger? So resolute then in my naive that the world would only ever be filled with black and white situations and clearly structured decisions; that options won’t spill over and circumstances won’t become a range of matters. That even grey can become gray dependant and that I won’t forget — a little — my voice and my person.
So, here we are, back where I can feel the rust, whereupon I can feel the slow churn, the distrust and hesitance in my forming of these sentences but like all good adventurers, we keep at it till we’ve discovered wonder.
We keep at it till it becomes even better.
Note: Adobe Photoshop Templates were used to piece together the images above.
