Yesterday, however, I, too, was feeling pretty awesome. I had a meeting with the Dean of Humanities at my school that left me feeling validated and floating as high as a helium-filled balloon. I have earned a scholarship to a writing conference this summer and she just wanted to discuss some details concerning this, but during our meeting she made a few off-hand remarks that I, of course, honed in on. These were small remarks that probably held little meaning for her. For me, they were everything.
As I got into the car after the meeting, I felt the overwhelming need to share my excitement with my husband and daughter even though it would mean stealing my husband's thunder for a little while.
"For the next five minutes, you will both bask in my amazingness," I declared, barely having even settled into the seat yet.
My seven year-old rolled her eyes and my husband looked skeptical. They love to remind me that I'm not as cool as I like to think I am. Ignoring them, I regaled my little family with all that the dean had said and explained that the college had agreed to not only pay for my attendance but to also put me up in a hotel for a couple of days. My daughter interrupted at least three times wanting the radio turned up, probably to drown me out. My husband seemed uninterested. I began to feel deflated. I wanted them to be as excited for me as I was.
My daughter, however, was interested in the hotel stay. "Can I come, Mommy?" she asked, promising to come to the workshops as well.
I told her that only I was going to the conference, but that if she continues to work on her reading and writing skills maybe one day she, too, could be a writer "just like Mommy," and then we'd send her to something similar.
My husband laughed. "You're not a writer," he said.
All the air that was left in my balloon full of pride escaped in a rush of disappointment. I tried to recover it. I tried to explain how "being a writer" does not refer merely to one's career path, but is a way of being, something we do and something we are as opposed to just a professional title.
"It's like being a mother," my creative writing instructor told our class earlier this week.
"Being a writer" is not dependant on what you do for a living, it's a life choice. A website I browsed for tips recently suggests that in order to "be" a writer, you must first declare yourself one. My first declaration fell on critical ears.
I defended myself against my husband, I told him everything my instructor said, everything the website suggested, but he still didn't get it.
"Then I'm a writer too," he said, "I write things for work sometimes." His sarcasm is impenetrable.
My five minutes up, I surrendered my time of glory back over to the birthday man. Later, as I iced white chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, I thought about what he had said.
"You're not a writer," resonated loudly within my soul. How could this man that I share my life with, that knows me better than anyone else, fail to see me as I see myself?
The answer came to me late last night as I wrote to my writing partner: I live my writing life too quietly. I wake up before dawn many mornings to perfect things I write, I struggle silently in my quests to perfect my work, I don't put anything I write out there for anyone else to read. I am a writer only in my most private moments, moments that even my husband and my daughter are not privy to. I write for school assignments, but this alone cannot qualify me as "a writer." How can anyone else begin to believe in me as a writer when I act like I don't believe in myself as one?
They can't.
So this is my resolution: I will act like a writer, I will become that which I claim to be. I will never again hide what I am, what I do. Certainly, I will still wake up before anyone else to write in the quiet stillness. I will most likely still produce work I am embarrassed to show anyone. But I will not hide what I am doing, what I am. I will proclaim it loudly: "I woke up early this morning and wrote a crap story, I'll wake up even earlier tomorrow and write a better one."
I'll begin by declaring it here, loudly, once and for all, for anyone who cares enough to read what I have to say.
I AM A WRITER!
Do you have anything you need to declare to the world? Feel free to proclaim it loudly here, in a comment.
You get up to early, Sabrina!
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