Baby steps

I realized that when I feel that stomach pain and jealousy flare up, there is some part of me that is unsatisfied and needs to be fulfilled. I don't want to live life wishing I had done something differently- feeling bitter toward anyone who fulfilled a dream just because I was too scared to follow (paraphrased, Ebeth).

This fall I have had the privlege of growing with Elizabeth. I was able to observe in her postcards from Prague & creation of her abroad journal that this was it for her: Eastern Europe, a passion that had been lacking for two years. She returned home after I had left for Minneapolis still clutching to uninspiration- fighting our writer's workshops and writer's journal that we pass back and forth. Through a few of my own ghosts and issues, we came together- bringing in writing from not only my letters of letting go but Megan's favorite written words and authors and a complete catharsis of our status as women in our early twenties.
A study about lonliness was performed by a life development theorist just a few years ago. Your own picture of lonliness may resemble a widow standing alone at a grave, the pale green walls of a nursing home, an older gentleman tucking himself into a queen size bed- his wife gone 4 years. The results of the study painted a different picture: a Loyola student riding the El, a young man dancing at a party, bar, or rave, a girl reading Harris in the airport. Research reported that a person in their early to mid twenties is more likely to be lonely than an aging adult. I remember the students in my Adulthood and Aging class literally gasped at the results- it is us who are lonely.
When I think about it, this study makes sense. I know that I am overwhelmed when I look cross- categorically in my own twenty-three-ness. I feel boring in comparison, doomed, and as though I will never catch my own dreams. I am lonely in that people at this age are extremely fluid- they pass through your life quickly because they are on their own paths with their own needs and significant others. Everyone around me seems to be frantically (and successfully) building something out of their lives- moving here and there and working with big names. The soldiers that are abroad fighting a war are placing their lives on the line for something that they believe just as the peace corps sends out new people to educate, help, and aid those in need. And what everybody is doing is not just something- it is the exact something that they wanted to do since the moment of conception. I hear about all these successful people doing "amazing things" upon graduation from college. I envy one of my closest friends, Lisa, who is truly living the writer's life in New York City. When she calls me she is in central park with her laptop I am so proud of her but I am also jealous. If I really wanted to be a writer, I think to myself, I wouldn't be here in Minneapolis studying occupational therapy. I would be in New York City where it is well known and tradition that every artist must mecca there before becoming something. Plus I would actually have to be good at writing. You can barely admit you want to be a writer because you're so afraid people will laugh and point out this journal is full of shitty writing. Blah Blah Blah. So New York City is essential in my potential success of ever being an artist- that of a writer.
Right?
I explored my writing with Elizabeth this fall because suddenly I was writing a lot more narratives inspired by the emotions and concepts that captured me. I found myself needing to sit down an jot stuff but where was it all coming from? Jottings in the margins of my anatomy book, in the occupational life theories, in the airport as I wait for my flight. I realized, with some excitment and relief, that a city of ten thousand artists (although respectful and ambitious) is not essential in my writing. What is essential to my narratives, however, is science. My own writer's workshop is lab where on Friday I realized that perhaps one of the most striking and lovely architectural designs is the bone structures involved in the arch of the foot. Where the calcaneous joins the talus and navicular in plantar flexion and all the ligaments have succeeded 90+ years in supporting this structure with with body weight until death.
I have written about three more pages in my notebook on this topic. I have spent a week away from a lot of core people in my life to think and reflect and shake out these little negative monsters that follow me around. What does it take for someone to accomplish what they really want? I need to remind myself that at twenty three, everyone around me is at a free for all sprint. It is chaos. It resembles the start of an easter egg hunt where hundreds of 2-10 year olds and their competitive parents rush around trying to pluck all the eggs before another person gets them. People like me get overwhelmed, feel lonely, and freeze. Currently I am frozen. But ask my OT class what my motto is and they will respond (cheerfully and supportively, I might add) that it is "Baby steps!". I am slowly thawing myself and starting with what I know and building. I might not be what I consider succssful until I am twenty eight or thirty nine but that's going to be alright with me. I just need to take my time.

At the risk of totally becoming jealous all over again I will introduce a cool writing of Zadie Smith. She is part of the successful Eggers-Smith-SafronFoer twenty something writer's circle that I am so envious of. Enjoy! A-Z by Zadie Smith