April, May... the months intertwine

I’ve been away from home for over a month, and I find it incredibly hard to write when I’m around other people, socialising and doing things. Even though most of the time I’ll be thinking, wow this thing I’m doing makes me really want to write about it and how much I’m enjoying my time with the people around me and how they inspire me and I could write a thousand words on it. But I never do. There’s something really alienating and anti-social in sitting down to write about what you’re experiencing in the moment, whether in a notebook or on your notes app. It distracts you from the now, it separates you from the moment and the people you’re with, it’s also embarrassing to think someone might ask what you’re doing and wish to read what you’re writing. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember (even when I had other ideas about what to do with my future, writing was always there in the back of my mind), but the idea of someone I know reading something I’ve written is absolutely terrifying. They’d be peering into my mind in a way that I’m not sure I want people who already know me to be able to do. For them to read this part of me, which I can barely share with the sometimes zero people who read my substacks, is horrific. They probably already have a preconcieved notion of who I am because they know me in person, and if the me that I present here doesn’t align with who they see me as, I would feel like an imposter, like I’m a bad writer, like I’m trying to be someone I’m not. I couldn’t possibly have someone burst the bubble that I might be all of those things, or none of them. So I didn’t write anything about the amazing last month and a bit that I’ve had. And, as this substacks proves, I have a terrible memory, so I can’t possibly write about anything in as much detail and with such emotion as I would like if I were to try and think back on these last six weeks. All I can think is, why is it so fucking hard to balance both sides of the things I love most. The entire time I was surrounded by the people I love most, experiencing new things and reliving old ones, having the absolute time of my life, I didn’t do the things I feel make me who I am, sum me up as a person; I didn’t read and I didn’t write. What’s worse is that, as per usual, the two weeks before I left on my trip, I had the biggest wave of inspiration I have ever felt in my entire life. Suddenly, I knew exactly who I was as a writer and what I wanted to do with it. I wrote thirty thousand words in a matter of three days. I was on a literal high. After several months of feeling lost and kind of lonely (entirely my own fault) I finally felt like it was all worth it. Holy shit, I finally knew how and what to write. I was finally a writer, with a bright light at the end of the tunnel that could possibly hold a lifeline to a future I’ve been dreaming of since I was five. Now, I’ve lost it. I have spent weeks away from my laptop and my notes and my ideas and have not been alone for more than an hour at a time in weeks and have not been able to even think. I am living a double life. The life of the hermit who cannot leave her house because what if inspiration strikes and then I don’t have the space and freedom to explore it, and the life of the social butterfly who loves her friends and the second she’s out and having a laugh she thinks, why don’t I do this more often? Why do I lock myself away when I can be out in the sun or the rain with the people who make me me? I cannot balance both versions of myself. Maybe that’s why I can’t fathom someone who knows me reading my thoughts. How can I tell them that I love them but that I have to spend a week locked in my room barely making a squeak because if I don’t finish reading my book and don’t finish writing down my train of thought which I lose track of immediately because my mind works faster than my hands because otherwise I’ll feel like I’m giving up on the only dream I have ever had in my life?

Why am I like this? Most writers must know how to balance their thoughts and social life. I’m not even doing this as a job, and I’m already lost. I just want to write and write and write and write. If I don’t, what’s the point in having dreams and desires if I’m not going to pursue them?

I will write. So future me, don’t be alarmed if I take another two months to write you a letter. I’m cooking up something good. I think five-year-old me, who used to staple pieces of paper together to create her own books, would be proud, and thirteen-year-old me, who used to try and write real stories on wattpad, would be glad I didn’t truly give up.

Sincerely, a girl with an old dream.

Lots of love,