When I Grow Up …

I know that I could talk about all the amazing things I might be able to be one day. But I am not one that is generally hopeful or excited about the future. Instead, I want to talk about something that has followed me my whole life. I love words and the impact they can have on other people.

Words are a turn on for me. If you are able to express yourself eloquently and know how to sew together a beautiful sequence of words, you are already half way into my pants. I thrive on intelligent people around me, people who are educated, people who are passionate about their ideologies and who are confident about their knowledge. My sapiosexuality comes from my own affinity to writing and expressing myself creatively with words. I love to reflect, I love to voice my thoughts in text. So what did I want to be when I grow up? I wanted to be a writer!

Beginnings

I learnt to read and write when I was four years old. My grandfather taught me, and I devoured every piece of text I could find. By the age of 8 I read full novels. I wrote a daily diary and I wrote poems. I also enjoyed reading historical, philosophical and political magazines. Basically, I was a weird kid, really. At that time I wanted to be a journalist and I remember that age 11, my uncle gifted me a book on how to become a journalist. Suffice to say, I failed at that. My life was too chaotic, and while I made it through highschool, my grades were not good enough.

During my teenage years I won a few competitions for my poetry and short stories. And during my twenties I realized that I was good at academic writing and even tutored others in it. I wrote a couple of novels that I never dared to publish. I am writing on a novel these days too. But writer as a career goal? That had been off the table for a while. I wanted to work in academia instead, in literary studies. But my health put a stop to that.

Throughout the years I have been blogging but I never really saw it as something that would be a career, nor something that would make me busy. It was more of a hobby kind of thing. Like my letter writing. Or my random poetry writing. And I also was going through a language crisis for a while. I have moved countries more than once and I couldn’t even decide which language to write in! Being a writer, as a profession was not on my plate. To be fair, any kind of career was not on my plate for a while.

I am a Writer!

I have been continuing to write in many different ways. I had never called myself a writer though. Up until recently. I think this blog has made me realize that a writer is someone who enjoys writing. It is not about if anyone reads what you have written, or if anyone loves what you have created. It is only about the act of writing. Everything else are adjectives. Published, beloved, celebrated, successful popular, freelancing. Those are all lovely. But do I need them to call myself a writer? No. So, yes, dear world, I am a writer.

And I want to make writing my profession, my career. What exactly that will entail in the future, I don’t know. But I am now at a point in my life where I don’t care about the big fat dreams that society pushes upon us. I don’t have kids and I will never have kids (thank you, PCOS!). I don’t want a car, I don’t even have a driver’s licence. And I don’t have a need for a tonload of money.

The only need, apart from my basic human needs, that I want to fulfill, is to write. It is not something that I feel forced to do. It is my passion and because my expectations careerwise are not skyhigh (let’s face it, I am not going to win the Nobelprize for writing on kink, sex, mental health and sex, BDSM or erotic stories), I can actually look at it with a way more relaxed attitude than I did when I was a kid. Back then, I wanted it to become big and famous, I wanted recognition. Now? I just want to write as eloquently as I possibly can. Now I want to make people think, reflect and maybe sometimes inspire them,

Look at today. Today has been an absolutely terrible day for me. I have spent hours in bed crying. My body was a total mess with spasms and twitchings, racing heartrate and an overwhelming headache. This led to me being basically freaked out for hours on end, unable to assess if I was dying or not. My mind is a fun place at the moment too. Anxiety is through the roof, and I am unable to take care of myself. Why? Because my boyfriend is abroad and will be for another five days. I can’t survive alone. It is not working. My body and mind are a mess. But that was not the point. Despite all that, I have been writing! It is like that: even if it is the last thing that I do, writing is always something that I will be able to do. I have found again what I had long lost and not thought about. My love for words has finally found its place in my life again.

When I grew up, I wanted to be a writer. But then I didn’t believe in myself anymore. And now? Now I am a writer. And when I grow up, I want to be the best writer that I can be.