Another reason I wanted to blog is to chronicle this new journey I'm embarking on. This year has been so difficult for me: I've faced big failure, big decisions and big changes. And now that I have made these goliath decisions, nothing is about to get any easier. I will soon turn 30, and I may still be in this strange city at that time. But rather than freak out about turning 30 with my life basically in shambles, I decided to look at it as starting a new chapter. And I figure I should start recording all of my new adventures. So I guess this blog gets to be the place for that.
So why am I against the world? Why is the world against me? Of course there's no official battle, but after this year I've felt that I am in a bit of a fight. It sounds really dumb, but I think I'm in a fight for my happiness. A few years ago I was assistant editor at a small community newspaper. I was putting my journalism degree to use, but I wanted more. I was continually striving for something else and finally I got a piece of that: a feature article on the front page of an inside section of the Minneapolis daily newspaper. I thought things would fall in my lap after that, but they didn't. This is when I decided to do something TOTALLY different: nursing. Although I chalk a lot of it up to a quarter-life crisis, I can say that growing up with a physician as a father and having that desire to help others made this career appealing. The fact that nurses are in high demand was also a draw. I left my job to take pre-reqs at a community college and attempted to apply for nursing schools. The process was arduous and I heard from everyone how hard it was to get into a program. So with this in mind, when I was accepted to a school in the Caribbean, I decided to go for it.
It was pretty much exactly two years ago that I set off for the tiny West Indies island of St. Kitts. Needless to say, that was an adventure all in itself. It was scary and fun, and the school was.... really bad. This was also when I began to have serious doubts about my abilities to handle the intensity of nursing. This self-doubt compounded with the utter crappiness of the St.
Kitts school left me very unprepared when (as part of the program) I transferred with five friends for our second year at a U.S. school, which just happened to be in Oklahoma. Although my confidence still faltered, I managed to get through my first semester here. My second semester here (which was to be the last), though, brought me a very hardcore clinical instructor, and my low self-esteem in the nursing realm really reared its ugly head. I know that I did improve, but I guess it was too little, too late because on the last day of clinical my instructor told me that I needed "more time," that I had failed.
I tend to tell people that I decided to no longer pursue nursing. I did decide, but the failing part definitely helped inform my decision. Initially I considered returning to school, which is why i moved from a suburb of OKC to the city, but after a lot of soul-searching, I finally decided I needed to listen to myself and return to what I do best: writing and editing. I've been to Austin, Texas, a couple times and absolutely love it. I think it would be the perfect place for me. Unfortunately, I haven't found any work or a place to live there yet, but I'm still looking. If I don't find anything there in a couple months, I'm just going to take what money I've made at a temp job I just found here, and move there. And the adventure (and fight) will continue....
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Intro
I feel like I've uttered some sort of heretical statement when I tell people I don't like to journal. "How is that possible?" they seethe. "You're a writer and you don't like to journal?" That's when I hang my head in shame. My credibility as a writer has been discredited, again. I should just forget it and go back to one of the five other things I've tried to do. Although I do feel a little insulted. I think judging a writer for not journaling bears some resemblance to judging an artist not doing paint-by-numbers (OK, so maybe that's a stretch, but it's all I could come up with).
It's not that I've never journaled. In my adolescence and early 20's I filled books upon books with a lot of nonsense. And that's the problem: just when I've finally forgotten some embarrassing moment, I have to flip through an old journal and find it there, scorched upon the page, in past efforts to "get it all out." As if the memory haunting me forever through my waking days isn't bad enough, now I have it down on paper for all eternity. Or until I shred it. It's enough to make me want to slam the book closed and fling it in a corner, hoping not to hit a cat.
I suppose I'm being somewhat dramatic, but it is the stupid little stuff that one should forget. So why constantly being reminded of it? I was once told that I could journal about positive things. I could. But I am a realist, and I do doubt that happening. I think a better way for me to "get it all out" is by wrapping the issue in cryptic language, as can be done in poetry or within the context of a story. I believe that takes the edge off a little bit, but still keeps the feeling behind it very alive.
And I don't feel like I need a journal as a guide to my writing because it's all trapped up there in my brain. Perhaps the only way for me to get it out is to write about it...
So why, you ask, are you blogging? Since most compare blogging to journaling, that's a fair enough question. Well the difference between blogging and journaling is that journaling is (usually) private, as opposed to the public nature of blogging. For me, I think blogging will offer a refined version of journaling: since others may read it, I may put more thought into it than I would in a private journal. Therefore I'm hoping it's a little less like word diarrhea and more like enjoyable and introspective anecdotes from my life. In the insane limbo that is my existence at present, I think it provides an opportunity for me to write, and it might be fun. I guess we'll see.
It's not that I've never journaled. In my adolescence and early 20's I filled books upon books with a lot of nonsense. And that's the problem: just when I've finally forgotten some embarrassing moment, I have to flip through an old journal and find it there, scorched upon the page, in past efforts to "get it all out." As if the memory haunting me forever through my waking days isn't bad enough, now I have it down on paper for all eternity. Or until I shred it. It's enough to make me want to slam the book closed and fling it in a corner, hoping not to hit a cat.
I suppose I'm being somewhat dramatic, but it is the stupid little stuff that one should forget. So why constantly being reminded of it? I was once told that I could journal about positive things. I could. But I am a realist, and I do doubt that happening. I think a better way for me to "get it all out" is by wrapping the issue in cryptic language, as can be done in poetry or within the context of a story. I believe that takes the edge off a little bit, but still keeps the feeling behind it very alive.
And I don't feel like I need a journal as a guide to my writing because it's all trapped up there in my brain. Perhaps the only way for me to get it out is to write about it...
So why, you ask, are you blogging? Since most compare blogging to journaling, that's a fair enough question. Well the difference between blogging and journaling is that journaling is (usually) private, as opposed to the public nature of blogging. For me, I think blogging will offer a refined version of journaling: since others may read it, I may put more thought into it than I would in a private journal. Therefore I'm hoping it's a little less like word diarrhea and more like enjoyable and introspective anecdotes from my life. In the insane limbo that is my existence at present, I think it provides an opportunity for me to write, and it might be fun. I guess we'll see.
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