Growing up sucks. Though there’s a great many things I don’t want back from my childhood (scrunchies, side-ponytails, school lunches, windshield wiper glasses), there are some compromises I’ve made since then I wish could have gone down a little differently.
When you’re a kid, you really, truly believe you’re special. Yes, I know this sounds completely hokey. But I remember very vividly, sometime about the age of eight or so, thinking to myself: “I am special.” And Special had none of the connotation you might be thinking (or are pretending you aren’t thinking… yeah, I bet she’s special..). Special was akin to magic. Purposeful. Important. Worthwhile. Unique!
Then, you grow up. You go to Junior High and are trampled in the halls. Your classmates start taking drugs, and you get the nagging feeling that… I’m not special. I’m downright odd. I don’t fit in! This is terrible! What am I doing here?! Someone LET ME OUT!
Uh, I mean. That’s normal, right?
Well, before the horror of high school, I held on to that feeling of specialness. I reveled it in, and it made me happy. Not haughty, just… well, a bit like no matter where I went, the sun was shining, yeah?
When you grow up, it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed by everything from gas prices to politics to the human condition to the fact that your neighbor brings their dog all the way to the poop hut and then lets the dog crap on the ground literally inches away from an appropriate dumping spot AND plastic bags!
And this is not good for the creative process. Like today. I can’t tell you what bee is in my bonnet, but it’s enough that I opened up Scrivener, looked at the pages, and just wanted to bash my head on the keyboard. 14 chapters of an original 30 edited, and I’m still nowhere near satisfied. If it’s not good enough for me, will it be good enough for anyone? Am I being too hard on myself?
…
I think this is a little more angsty sounding than I initially intended it to be. But the writing process, as any writer knows, is work. It’s even more work, when you have to squeeze it in every chance you get. And who knows if the muse will be with you? My muse, whom I lovingly named Aelfric in college (he’s an Anglo-Saxon, for some odd reason) is fickle and, I suspect, a drunk.
That said, one should never give up. I like to visit George R. R. Martin’s not-a-blog on occasion because, well, he’s successful, but he still gets frustrated.
Maybe we’re still special, just… not the way we once imagined.
The Aldersgate Cycle 
April 17, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I’m in the processing of growing up. I’m still in high school, and I get more nervous each day because I know that one day it’s all going to be over. The late-night sleepovers, eating Oreo’s until you puke, it’s gone. I think we never really grow up, our bodies just age. You’re probably thinking that I can’t say anything because I’m still a teenager, but I’ve seen adults who lost who they used to be when they were kids. We’re all special, we just have to hold on to it..
April 17, 2008 at 10:34 pm
No, in fact, I think the fact that you’re a teenager probably means you have a lot more interesting things to say than I do. I rather liked who I was as a teenager! I should probably listen to teenagers more (my son is not even two… so his opinions aren’t altogether formed).
That said, I don’t think I’ve entirely lost who I was as a kid–and the whole concept of “growing up” is silly, when you think about it. I don’t want to lose it–it’s just easier to forget that indeed, we are special. Life, it seems, moves at a very strange pace.
Enjoy your last years of high school, and take all the time you can!
I’ve never eaten Oreos until I puke, but maybe I should try.
April 17, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Defiantly eat Oreos until you puke! It’s totally worth it! :]
April 19, 2008 at 2:41 pm
LOL! I don’t know about the Oreos thing…
It’s different when you’re in your adolescence and people are telling you that you are special because they feel they should encourage you so you don’t do something drastic in those most awkward of years. Perhaps we get spoiled, in early childhood too, because we are always encouraged, always appreciated, always told we’re special and we can do whatever we want. Is that because our parent’s and elders wish to live vicariously through us, because they feel the pressures of responsible adulthood? Maybe. Is it unhealthy for kids? I don’t think so. We all have to go through the shift from invincible youth to knowing our limits (and mortality) in adulthood. drivemysoul has a good point though, we have to hold on to our dreams and that feeling of being special, because we ARE.
So, I’m telling you now that you are special. And I will tell you anytime you need to hear it, and even when you think you don’t.
April 19, 2008 at 6:18 pm
I guess, what I’m trying to say is that I wish I could tap into that unending well of confidence I used to have.
And thanks for the reminder. I’m blessed to have such an awesome friend in you!
December 30, 2009 at 6:25 pm
[…] other thing I have just started to learn how to do is muster my confidence. Two years ago, according to this archived post, I was rewriting The Aldersgate from memory, hardly consulting the original draft (a process that […]