I race to the computer. But first I furiously open a bottle of wine. But first I tear off my skinny jeans and thrust my legs into a pair of worn out, fraying “sweatshirt” shorts, the ones with a drawstring. But first I pee.
I race to the computer to say this: that I am a writer. That I wish I had listened to that pull of the words on paper that I remember first knowing when I was seven years old, when I won the city’s contest for creativity. The prize was a $50 bond. I think I still have it, pockmarked with thumbtack holes from all the places I have lived – my first prize for writing, on display. I wore a white turtleneck studded with multicolored shapes that looked like Good ‘n Plenty when they gave me the award.
Tonight I sat in my child’s third grade classroom, a monster of an adult perched on a tiny child’s chair, listening to his teacher describe the many ways that her students, her bright, inquisitive students, surprise and delight her. I heard a mother whisper to another “We’re so lucky.”
They’re so lucky. We’re so lucky. I’m so lucky.
I’m so lucky that even after decades of redirection, somehow I found my way back to writing, to the struggle of identifying myself as a writer even when nobody is paying me to write words. I’m lucky that I do this even for myself, so that when I want to remember what it was like to smell my newborn baby, or dig a steamer clam out of the Bay of Conception in Mexico, or throw a rage-fueled punch that puts a hole in a wall, I can look back on these digital bits, and remember.
Somewhere between age 7 and my stellar performance in high school, I decided that I would be a doctor. It was a great detour, a misstep, a wrong turn. I wrote during all of that. I kept a journal, a cringeworthy Moth-worthy journal of angst and teenaged love in a composition notebook in high school. I kept a journal in college, when it was now my job to process thought and spit it back out in an organized fashion. I wrote about world events like the Berlin wall coming down, the Rodney King riots, the earthquake. I wrote about young love and betrayal. I wrote about my friends. I wrote about my dying grandmother.
And then I didn’t get into medical school, and I lost a great love, and I wrote about all of that in my paper journals, too. I moved across the country to find myself and have a grand adventure, and here I am now, living in a suburb, heating up chicken nuggets before the babysitter gets here, sitting obediently in a third grade classroom at Back to School night. I’m on the board of the PTA. I wear my dyed blonde hair in a ponytail. I am a stereotype.
And I love it.
Because I have had rejections, because I have taken time off, because I have stalled at selling my story, I have been feeling like a poser, a fraud, a mother who is “working” with air quotes formed by fingers when someone asks me what I do. Still, I read books about writers, I am in a writers’ group, I am on a writers’ message board. After being a student again just for one delusional moment, I came home and picked up a book about writing, and I felt an electric moment of recognition. “Yes!” I screamed silently. “I know this! I am this!”
So that’s it. Whatever I’m doing, however successful I am at it, this is the truth. I am a writer.
I’ve always been a writer.
It’s nice to say and mean it, even if I have to keep doing this. When you’re in love, and you say “I love you,” you don’t only say it once. You keep saying it. Your lover needs positive affirmation, maybe sometimes, maybe often. So I’ll say it again.
I am a writer.
I remember.
Fist. Bump.
Thanks Ilina! I knew you would get it.
Kim Tracy Prince recently posted…Songs That Stab Me in the Heart: “No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do” by Band of Horses
A wonderful writer too!
Thank you Lisa! You have always been so supportive of me. It means so much.
Kim Tracy Prince recently posted…I Am a Writer
When people ask me why I write, I always answer, “Because I can’t not write.” It’s as simple as that. Where the waters get murky is when we buy into the modern (as in post-19th c) belief that monetizes our worth.
Being a writer and earning a living are not mutually exclusive, but neither are they (a) easy to achieve, and/or (b) a marker of how good a writer we are. Remember Coma, the first mega-bestseller that was written, according to its author, Robin Cook, after he analyzed bestsellers and came up with a formula. There are writers who see writing as a business, and then there are the rest of us, who write because we can’t not.
Jane Gassner recently posted…Defeating the Menopot with Estroven
Jane, you’re so right. I haven’t been writing much lately, like Writing writing, because I’ve been in a funk about the business of it. And the funk built up inside me until I wrote this last night and I feel so much better. It was like a draining an infected wound. (I know.) I guess that’s why: because I can’t not write.
You’re a damn good writer too. And the fact that you wrote this after a back-to-school night, a little bit tipsy after a girls’ night makes me kind of hate you. I’m not sure I can still be your friend. (But I love you too much, so that’s not really an option. But I do want to say that I am in awe of your talent and your awesome writerly presence.
Charlene Ross recently posted…I Thought I was the Worst Twerk Fail EVER
Yes you are. I’m glad you let yourself tell yourself that–sometimes that matters more than everyone ELSE telling you that. (And when you finish that book on writing, I’ve got another you should read.)
I always knew you were a great writer. I can only aspire to write at your level. Thank you for being an inspiration to me and many, many others.
And yes, you are, always have been, and always will be a writer.
Oh ladies, I love you, man!
So beautiful.
It’s different for me… I’m not a true writer. I don’t feel the pull and necessity of writing daily. But the funny thing is that my business as a blogger and social media influencer has just the right amount of writing in it for me.
But I can hear in you a true writer.
Now I can say to people who ask what my daughter does, “She’s a writer!”
Love this, Kim, owning up to that quirky part of ourselves that we tried to deny existed for decades. My best stuff is in journals under the bed, too.
Pat recently posted…World’s Largest, Oldest International School Provides a Global Education
Hell yeah.
Yes ma’am indeedy….
Rina recently posted…A Crazy Idea
You are an awesome and INSPIRING writer! I’m so glad you are finally confessing your love, your passion. And I didn’t know about your early years creativity award! I hope you know how many souls you touch…because you are so relatable and so genuine in what you write. 🙂
You sure write like a writer!