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what i left behind

what i left behind

In regards to this morning's post: This came about not because a) I was high, b) I was over-medicated or c) I was contemplating running away from home, as some of you nice people thought. It came about because last night as I was going through my closet, I came across several boxes filled with things I have written, accumulated since grade school. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, years and years of it just sitting in boxes.

Writing is the one thing people thought I was good at. It was about the only thing I was every praised for in school, the one talent my friends envied and grownups talked about. It was all I had. There isn't a person I knew in high school who is not surprised that I didn't go into a writing-related profession. So all those boxes represented everything I let slip by me. All my chances and invitations and acknowledgements are now nothing more than pieces of old, crumbled paper. And why? Why did I let it all go? Fear, I suppose. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of realizing that the one thing I could do well wouldn't really get me by in life.

I don't know if it's too late to do something with those years of handwritten angst and fear stuffed into so many cardboard coffins. 20 years later, and I am still that little girl with no self-confidence who is afraid to try. I still procrastinate until it becomes too late and then I don't have to stare at a rejection letter or listen to someone say why I'm just not good enough.

And that's why I'm restless. That's where it's coming from. I did forget something. I forgot to become what I set out to be. I forgot to try. I forgot about the only thing I was ever any good at.

I am 39. Is it too late to go back and try again?

Posted by on November 28, 2001 06:17 PM |

Comments

You are way to hard on yourself...look around yourself and see what you DO have...children and a guy who, I guess, love you. That is not failure. Oh, and for your information, the only time it's "too late" is when the pulse in you wrist stops. History is full of people who got a later start. Be one of them! Or don't and be happy with your acomplishments. Don't mesure yourself by your past and what others THOUGHT you should have done...that's a recipie for depresion. Mesure yourself by YOUR acomplishments (I know you've got some) or don't mesure yourself at all and just be happy. Screw the "What Ifs" look at the "What Ares".

I just thought I should say that...

And remember...Don't be so tough on yourself...K?

Posted by: Lisa | November 28, 2001 07:07 PM

As long as you breathe, it's never too late.

Posted by: John Banks | November 28, 2001 08:32 PM

Fear of falling? Sometimes you fall... but sometimes you get to fly.

Posted by: D | November 29, 2001 04:45 AM

Ohh D. I love you for quoting Neil Gaiman to me.

Posted by: michele | November 29, 2001 05:17 AM

I'd just like to point out that my mother is nearly 50, when she was 38 she radically changed her life and everything she knew and is currently living in a fabulous country house to the east of Paris with orchards and chickens and gets to drive a '67 Mustang when she feels like it?

Make the changes, because there is nothing people cannot do if they try hard enough.

Posted by: D | November 29, 2001 05:23 AM

it is never ever EVER too late. for anything.

i can heartily testify to that.

Posted by: elise | November 29, 2001 06:16 AM

it's only too late if you give into the fear Michele - get yr ass out there and write, goddamn it, write...fly, lesbian seagul...

Posted by: g | November 29, 2001 07:21 AM

Argh, I hate it when my opinion matches that of everyone else on earth... but that's my own personal character flaw...

My point: my father was a security officer at a power plant in rural north dakota until he was 40. When my brother and sister went to college, so did he. My mom, too. Then he went to PA school. Now, he's a physician's assistant, and loves what he does.

I honesty believe that it's not too late to switch it up a little and do something else. I mean, have you seen some of the dumbasses who are going to school building their future career? I don't mean that you have to go back to school to change your direction, but what I do mean is that if some Dave Matthews-listening, pot smoking frat-boy can start a life from scratch, I'd like to think that an intelligent, talented, beautiful woman such as yourself with scores of supportive friends could pull something together and be happier.

2¢

Posted by: trav | November 29, 2001 09:32 AM

I realise I'm just repeating things others have already said, but for what it's worth:

1) Being in a relationship and raising kids, not to mention being the kind, thoughtful, funny person you reveal to the world through your weblog, are hardly inconsequential achievements in themselves. Don't be so tough on yourself simply because you didn't follow the path you thought you would twenty-odd years ago.

2) If you really want to pursue a writing career, go for it. Plenty of writers started out later in life. Why shouldn't you?

Posted by: John | November 29, 2001 01:53 PM

what they said. the worst, probably, that can happen is you fail, and people fail every day, so what the fuck - even that would beat wondering a life long whether you could have made it work. (i say this as someone who is in a similar position). and, what john says is very true. sometimes you have to be ready to accept the life that comes to you. that doesn't mean you still can't write, just that you've already done a lot. and 39 is not old, in writing years at least.

Posted by: miguel | November 29, 2001 02:23 PM

I love you guys. Every last one of you.

Posted by: michele | November 29, 2001 05:56 PM

What... even Mig? But he's so short!

Posted by: D | November 29, 2001 07:36 PM

F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
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