I am almost thirty-two years old and still don’t know what I am doing with my life. Wasn’t I supposed to figure that out when I was eighteen? Heck, my six-year-old son has known what he wants to be since he could speak. (A builder, in case you were curious.)
When I graduated college, there was so much pressure to just pick something. I didn’t want to “just pick.” I wanted to take time off to travel and figure out what I liked and who I was. I didn’t get to. My mom… for lack of a better word… bribed me into going to college right away by giving me a bit of money to live off of if I did. Plus, in New Mexico, if you went to college right out of high school, you were eligible for a scholarship that made college almost free. Who can pass up free?
Then in college, I changed my major multiple times. I ended up landing on education because it felt safe. I liked kids. I loved having summers off. Sounded great. No one told me teachers don’t get paid for crap, and they certainly aren’t respected or valued. I lasted five years as a teacher and hated it. It was so hard, and everything was always my fault. There was no support. “Oh, you sat through lectures on how to teach math, and you took tests that have no real-world application? Cool, now figure it all out in a room full of 10-year-olds all while we judge you!”
While teaching, I discovered I truly loved writing. Or perhaps more accurately, I love being read. The thrill of getting my words into someone else’s hands is unparalleled. When the pandemic hit I found a tutoring gig and tried to do that while writing, thinking it would be slow at first, but if I kept to it, writing could become my full-time gig.
But I was a mother, and the lack of money made me feel stressed all the time. Teaching didn’t make much money but it made more than tutoring part-time. I felt guilty every time I used the time to write instead of working or taking care of my kids. How selfish was I to try to do something that wasn’t even guaranteed to make money or succeed when I could have been doing dishes or taking my kids to the park or working a better job? Plus, I wrote three full-length novels, and nothing came of it. When I let others read them they found issues that were overwhelming to fix. Finding an editor or coach or something would have cost me money I didn’t have. It felt like so much work with no reward at all.
So I went back to teaching. Because even if I was unhappy, at least I had value. At least I made some money to help my family. I spent a year working the worst job I have ever had in a place that was flooded with corruption. Yay. I ended up heartbroken. Then I tried to break into tech because it’s all the rage. “That’s where all the money is!” people say. All I got out of it was more debt for useless classes and no job prospects because layoffs in the tech world are a massive problem. I’d failed. Again.
I’d tried to do something I wanted, only to be flooded with guilt all the time. I tried to go back to something I didn’t like to help my family and still felt like a failure and was stressed out all the time. I tried again for something that made more money and couldn’t find a job at all. In the process, I lost a part of who I was in the struggle; the creative part of me was caged.
If you’ve ever caged your creativity and decided you can’t use it anymore because you aren’t good enough and it isn’t “benefiting you enough”—then you may know how I felt for a long time. Empty. Worthless. Fearful. Frustrated. Those are just a few of the emotions that come up when I think about it. When you put a part of yourself in the closet and tell it it isn’t good enough, everything in life gets harder. After a while, even when I’d want to write or use my creative muscles, I was flooded with “why bother,” “I’m not good enough,” or even “I hate myself” thoughts. It was a dark time inside my mind full of listlessness.
I won’t bore you with the details of how I got here, but now I am working as an RBT (I help give therapy to autistic kids) plus I run a candle business with my best friend. The candle business doesn’t make any money right now. It’s still new. It takes up time and money but we make a good product, and my creativity has begun to show its face again. Instead of coming out in the form of stories, it shows itself through scent choice and matching scents to different books or emotions. It shows itself through the color choices for the flowered tops and the different ways to make the product pretty. Am I going to stay an RBT forever? Am I ever going to write again? Am I going to retire off my candle business? I don’t know. The fact that I don’t know is a source of stress sometimes. I want to know the future, gosh darn it! But the fact is right now, I’m healing. I’m letting my creativity heal. I’m letting my bank account heal. I’m gaining some confidence again. And truly, that’s all that matters for now.
If you learn one thing from my experience it’s this: don’t put so much pressure on yourself. I’m sure, like me, you’re doing the best you can. “Failure” is inevitable at times and doesn’t mean a thing about your self-worth. As long as you’re trying, you’re winning in my book.
Brenda Wilson, a former teacher and mother of two, has enriched the literary world with several short stories, engaging blog posts, and unpublished novels. Her passion for writing and reading reflects her deep love for creativity and storytelling. Aspiring to be an editor, Brenda continues to explore the depths of her imagination and help others in their creative journeys.
Featured image by Al.
