sixth stage.

i spent the larger part of my second year at university studying the hero's journey, to the point where i could not look at a can of campbell's soup without imagining the little man trudging through the unknown threshold. regardless, it had me thinking about traditional depictions of heroism and the sheer tremendous suffering that comes with it. but more depressingly, it had me scrutinizing the story writing process. point a to point b to point c. deviations are okay, until they aren't. you just have to know what's good. 

since the last time i uploaded something on here, i have not reconciled even a little bit with my hesitance of calling myself a writer. it's gotten worse, in fact, and i think i need to make peace with the fact that perhaps, i really am not a good writer at all. 

it's something that pokes at the soft parts of my heart quite a bit when i really think about it; my ability to tell a story has been my favorite part about myself ever since i was old enough to know what counted as a story. a three second baby babble that gave my mom the full contours of the depth of my hunger, a scribbled toddler rant in red crayon across the wall narrating anger, anger, anger, a 200 page journal cover to cover detailing my last relationship. a beginning, a middle, an end. it is so simple but it's the hardest thing to do well, especially when your discernment overshadows your talent by leaps and miles. 

but i have always been able to tell a story. it's about stepping out of yourself for a little bit, it's about knowing the words to describe what you're seeing. two steps that become nearly infinite when your discernment overshadows your talent by leaps and miles. 

i have been wondering lately if i've even ever liked writing at all, but of course i did. how could i not? it's what got me the prizes. it's what got me the graduation speeches. it's what got me the accolades. but i'm wondering if there was any self-satisfaction in the mix as well now. but how could there not be? i wrote stories for myself for as long as i can remember. but funnily enough, i conversely cannot remember the last time i wrote a proper story. i cannot remember the last time i have been able to step out of myself and be brave enough to write down what i'm seeing. the idea that writing is never that serious keeps coming to me unbidden, because i truly do not know what could be more serious than writing. 

i respect a good writer. i also hate them. it's one of those ugly, pulsing emotions you don't talk about unless you're writing a particularly vulnerable self-help book about recognizing envy. but writing is also about cutting those ugly, pulsing emotions open and spreading them out on paper. it is unfortunately, just that serious. but i constantly wonder what they have that i don't- what makes them a good writer and me, a mediocre one, if a writer at all? i almost feel as if i cannot write well until i figure out how to answer that question. but i don't find it in the feedback for my college papers. and i don't find it in comments under anonymous writing. and i don't find it in vonnegut's shapes of stories. i don't find it in my cup of coffee or the innards of my gas oven. the solution most obviously is to just write anyway. you don't need to be good at something to do it. but here's the kicker- i only want to be good. i just so badly want to be good that i do not do anything if i am not good at it. and i happen to not be good at a lot of things. 

i think i'm on a carousel slipping in an out of the fifth stage of the hero's journey: abyss. loss and gain and loss and gain and loss and gain. and it has become such an inane mundanity now that it seems as if there's nothing i have to say that is worth saying, not when it won't be good enough to push me through to the sixth stage. when do i become too old to not have thrown my towel in already? 

sweep.

most of my search history lately has been about freelance writing- 'best litmags to submit to' 'magazines submissions process' 'contemporary lit forums' 'short fiction mag' 'writing portfolio', so on and so forth. i think a little (a lot) of it is done begrudgingly, out of the need to monetize one of the few things i enjoy doing because i simply do not want to do anything else. ambition is a buzzword i stuff into all of my applications but at the heart of it, i only want to swim everyday and buy a nice, shiny coffee machine. i want very little outside of that. 

maybe i want a good camera too. i've been struck by the urge to distill every little moment of my life on tape and asked a bunch of my photographer friends the other day for good camera recommendations- i closed every photography-related tab once i realized the sort of things i want to produce happen only with the pricetag of a couple hundred euros and a bunch of software that i don't have the storage for. as it is, my dad gifted me his old digital camera from a decade ago and while i cannot create a feature length (and quality) video with it, it picks up the clouds passing by my window very well. 

i thought of writing on medium or substack, gain a more stable following rather than the ebb and flow of random internet traffic, and perhaps letting this small little site fade out into mediocrity, but i've been here since i was fourteen and i will be twenty one in a couple months. i started it because i was heartsick and sad, all the ugly emotions coalescing into loud guilt with nowhere to put it. my psychiatrist told me to find somewhere quiet, and drop all the baggage down in a place no one can hear it and i figured the quietest place i had was online. a week later, i made this site and wrote about things no one really had full context to. it was peaceful in a sense, and this place is where i learnt how to do a lot of things. i learnt how to drag anger out by the fist from my windpipe, i learnt metaphors are my best friends and what clunky writing sounds like. i learnt i don't like to write when i'm happy, but i don't like to write when i'm too sad either. there's a sweet spot that's just three steps from the left of total equilibrium and i've learnt to balance on one foot quite well. 

it's also nice having something to look back on, in terms of pure technical style and a personal sense. reading my new years post from 2020 and seeing the sentence "2020 shall be about the small victories" made me wobble in my place a little bit. reading how earnestly i finally wanted to learn how to be honest with people i loved, knowing where i am now due to that learned honesty, threw me for a spin. i've recorded so much on here, but at the same time, absolutely nothing at all. just enough for me to remember the severity of certain periods in the last few years, but not enough to clue a stranger in on it. 

regardless of the scarcity of them, i didn't realize how childish i've sounded in all of these entries until recently, but i figure it's alright to be childish here. my one place. there's also a smug sort of sweetness when i notice my words flow a lot better than it did six years ago, and i'm finding a personal writing style. i had a journalism course last semester during which i wrote a feature story on the dutch housing crisis, and the professor liked it so much he presented it to the class. unfortunately, i didn't attend class that day (for good reasons; i had seen one of my favorite artists live the day before and i reached home quite late) so i missed hearing what he said firsthand, but a person i didn't know very well came up to me in the next class and told me how he didn't even need to mention who wrote it at first, it was so extremely obvious it was my writing. i was confused, firstly, but then extremely warmed. it is a lovely thing to be told your writing is distinctive. i never asked her how she knew i wrote it, but i think about it a lot. 

i hesitate to call myself a writer ever, because what have i ever written really? the title of 'writer' belongs to those in the upper echelons that can untangle shame from their writing. amidst all the things i have learnt how to do on here, i have not learnt how to do that. my friends know i have a blog but i have never given them the url. there are a few stories in my roster, a few poems even, i'd go so far as to include songs i had written years and years ago back when playing music was a big part of my life, but what have i actually written? 

to become a freelance writer when you cannot accept the fact that you write, to host a writing workshop and put yourself in the position to teach others how to write when you cannot accept the fact that you write- few things make sense to me, but somehow this does. i need to have all of the credentials before i can safely admit, yes, i write. intangible proof i can offer when someone asks me what i like to do. 

when i initially started writing this, i wanted to make a blasé half-hearted statement about the inevitable doom that comes with monetizing your passion but as so usually happens when i write, the original point wriggles out of my hand and hides in a deep, dark corner where it usually disappears soon after. regardless, i hope i make it someday. i hope, someday, i don't feel hot embarrassment adding writing to my list of things i care about. 

this sinking feeling.

i haven't heard her voice in a long time, the familiar cadence of it- a little rough around the edges. i imagine her voice is sore from not having spoken for so long. i wasn't expecting her to speak today. the jarring suddenness of "it's all your fault" being yelled loudly into my ear, on repeat, slowly louder with each passing syllable. the crescendo sounds like cymbals hitting right next to my ear drum. 

i don't know what she looks like, but i imagine she looks a little rough around the edges too. long, disheveled hair, clothes wrinkled around the edges, slippers hanging off her feet. her teeth are rotting and yellow. i think she's enjoying talking out loud again. i don't think her voice can get any louder but it does. the sharp, jagged shapes of "it's all your fault" presses against the walls of my brain and there's simply nothing i can do to quieten her. the only appeasement she ever wants is permanent, it's something i cannot give her. 

i haven't heard her voice in a long time.

there was a time she used to talk to me everyday not that far back, very much in the recent past. i imagine she was as loud as she is now, if not even louder. she's always been fond of phrases that cut deep- i remember her screaming "you should keep your mouth shut" one day. i was in the metro station. it's cold underground, concrete tubes bouncing the chill off of each other. there were people around me and i was sure they could hear her. her grating croak reminding me how being quiet is a good thing and it never serves you well to talk. i was sure they could hear her. she was so loud, i couldn't hear the metal screech of the metro approaching. she was so loud, it made me want to appease her. it only would have taken a step. she would have been happy. 

i imagine she's wetting her throat with my brain fluid, it's a hard thing to describe a voice in your head, especially when it's so much more than that. but i imagine she is the woman in the decaying white dress in the haunted room in my head. i imagine she is the impulse pushing my mouth open with two fingers and letting all the words tumble out when i feel safe. i imagine she is the hand squeezing my heart when everything starts feeling wrong again. i imagine she is the guilt i carry around. the repulsion. 

i haven't heard her voice in a long time. 

i had almost forgotten what it's like, to feel so safe and have the carpet ripped out from under you. and it's a funny thing when you turn around to see who's pulling the carpet and you lock gazes with your own silhouette gone rogue. i'm now falling over backwards and i imagine she is the space between my head and the floor in the few seconds between impact, a warning to prepare for blinding pain. a warning that comes slightly too late to dodge the pain. 

she gets louder and louder and I'm starting to realize she's perhaps not all that wrong. even my pillow wrapped firmly around my ears cannot distract me from the fact that she has never been wrong. the rustle of the pillowcase against my ear, the steady thump of my pulse reverberating across the cloth, the soft swells of cotton pressing at the cloth. nothing distracts me from her voice. 

she's quieter in the morning, but not by much. it scares me that she's still there but i have this sneaking suspicion she is here to stay for a while. i don't remember how i lived with her in such close quarters for months on end- there's not a lot of space in there. i've never measured it but i imagine my scalp is around 15 centimeters across. there's simply not enough space for all of us. her and her friends, the entire snarling lot of them. 

her voice feels as gross as the mouthfeel of waking up after a long and restless sleep, thick and crusted over. she tells me this is just how it is meant to be, and i don't disagree with her. not actively. i do a little shake of my head and a little huff, but i don't disagree with her. i think all the sweetness in life can be unearthed in a well-brewed cup of coffee, but there's little outside of that. i spend a lot of time thinking about heaven and i like to tell myself she'll be quiet there. maybe she'll even go away and 10cm of my head gets freed up. maybe. 

i'm beginning to believe perhaps any sweetness outside of coffee isn't meant for me. maybe there's something about me, maybe people can hear her when they get too close. 

i haven't heard her voice in a long time. 

i have over 7000 words due in five days but i'm here trying to map out what it is about life that insists on taking away any stability i scrounge up with my own two hands. she gives me so many reasons but none of them feel quite right, more self-loathing than actual truth. i wonder if i am meant to lose and lose and lose and lose. to have warmth and lose it and gain it back only to lose it once more. if i were to stop seeking warmth, if i have already stopped seeking warmth, who would blame me? she tells me a lot of people will, and i don't disagree with her. the amount of words i'd like to really let out choke my brain at its stem and she reminds me there's nothing i can do or say that makes anything better. 

i don't disagree with her at all.