The Plan

I've struggled with keeping up this blog and I think that a lot of it has to do with discipline. Just like with any new activity, the beginning is the hardest. Once you start doing it regularly, it becomes a habit. I don't want to be that person who always starts something and then trails off at the end, until it fades out of my life. But the other reason, I think is because I just don’t know where I’m going. I have all these ideas of where I wish my life was going, but no idea how to get there

I started out with a plan. I was going to be a journalist. I was good at writing and I liked talking to people, so this was a natural path for me. Or so I believed. When I graduated, I realized how little experience I had. I thought any experience was good experience, so I took an internship at a new blog, founded by two early-thirties men. It had a Buzz-feed vibe to it. So twice a week, I sat in a room with two or three guys, searching for stories to blog. They wanted the entertaining, the funny and the viral. I wrote posts on topics such as, “20 Things Conservatives Have Compared Homosexuality To” or the “10 Strangest Crimes Committed in Walmart Parking Lots.” Each story I wrote just made my heart sink lower and lower. I wanted to write stories that made people think, that made them cry- stories that made a difference.

Since leaving that internship, I’ve had a few more internships, but nothing that made me excited. I picked up a part-time retail job and then a server position at a tea lounge. I hoped and hoped to find a job I would truly love. On my days off, I just sat away, applying and applying to jobs, then receiving rejection after rejection. It was incredibly disheartening. I would quit and stop applying for a while. But then I would think about how I’m lucky I have any job, when so many people are unemployed. I would think about how I’m still young, there’s still time and start plugging away again.

I think moving to Baltimore has been good for me in a lot of ways. With no one to encourage me to apply for jobs, it’s all on me. I really care what people think of me and I get so embarrassed at social gatherings when they ask what I do and I have to say that I work at a retail job. After graduating three years ago, I want to be proud of my job. It’s really hard when there isn’t anyone to tell you what to do, but I think in some ways it makes you work more. I’ve been worrying so much about paying loans and having enough to live on that I’ve put my passions aside. And I’m determined to change that. I don’t want to sell clothes for the rest of my life.

I started with my writing. I’ve always loved to write. I very clearly remember writing my first poem in kindergarten. It wasn’t a very good poem, but it was my first! When I got older, I would write stories that had the Powerpuff Girls in them, or magical cats. I kept writing through high school. One semester in college, I took a poetry class and loved every minute. But between other classes and friends, I stopped writing. I finally started again when I started an open mic night at the tea lounge where I worked after graduation. I forgot how good writing poetry made me feel. It’s sort of like running, in that when you start out, you feel like you’re like walking through cement, but once you keep going, you feel amazing.

That was about two years ago. I’ve still been writing off and on. But I to keep at it. So, in April for National Poetry Month, I decided to write a poem every single day. I tried this last year and only got through about a week. This time, I made myself accountable by asking a few of my friends if I could email them my poems and if they didn’t hear from me, they would email me- a nicer way of guilt tripping. And I actually did it. I missed a few days but I always went back and wrote the ones I missed. I was so proud of myself for actually sticking to a goal.

I think that this had me realize I can be a great writer if I just work at it. Over the past few weeks, I’ve started submitting my writing to literary magazines and emailing blogs to ask to be a regular contributor. I wrote an introductory article for a co-worker, a graphic design student, who made a magazine for her thesis. Finally, I feel like I have a direction.

Recently, a friend recommended a podcast that her friend was making about being a college graduate and I’ve found it incredibly cathartic. If you haven’t heard it yet, please give it a listen, by clicking here. All the feelings of failure and despair Megan Tan talks about are the same ones I’ve been feeling.
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One of the other reasons I think I’ve been struggling with this blog is because I’ve been trying to make it like an advice column. I don’t have all the answers. I’m just trying to figure it all out. But I hope that by writing about what I’m going through, I’ll find other people who are going through the same thing.