The Brilliant Dance

All my life I have found it easy to encourage, to inspire, to ignite. All my life, I have found out that for some crazy reason, I know what to say and how to say it. I know how to make people breathe and I know how to make people think. I know how to shout and how to whisper. I know how to be heard.

The past six months have been a whirlwind for me. I started college and I changed, dramatically. Honestly,  I barely know the girl who walked into Camp Hall in August. I started becoming the person I had always wanted to be. Somewhere in making my dreams come true, I abandoned the one thing that made me breathe, the one thing that made me feel. I stopped writing. And somehow not writing turned into not having passion. I stopped wanting things because I was slowly obtaining everything I had thought I wanted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not lazy, but I am a procrastinator. And lately, I've procrastinated passion. I've been so concerned with being busy and being someone that I haven't made time to be me. Sure, life takes dedication. It takes, not only, ambition, but drive as well to achieve your dreams, but you cannot lose yourself in that.

God willing, I will be a politician one day. Politicians and college kids have a lot in common. They start off with one goal, usually idealistic, and somewhere, somehow, it all goes wrong. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Say it ain't so. 

During midterms last semester, I called my brother upset because I hated my Spanish class. I hated Spanish because I was struggling at something I used to be great at. He told me that no skill that you used to have matters. No one cares that you used to know Spanish. No one cares if you used to be a good person. No one cares if you used to get good grades. They care who you are know and who you are trying to be.

No one cares that I used to be a good writer. I can't put that on my resume. I can't get into law school with an annotation that says "I swear I can write better; I just need to find myself again." No one cares what a politician enters the game as. No one cares that he or she claims to believe in something. The public barely sees their platforms, but their actions instead.

I don't want to be a face without substance. I don't want to be a politician without a stance. 

...I want to be a person of integrity, who believes, cries, and yearns for things. I want to be a passionate writer who cannot stop, who will not stop.

I want to be me. And I write. 

You Don't Need Inspiration to Inspire

Write two paragraphs, delete one, decide the other one was better, and become frustrated again. Why is it that some days words fly from our fingertips and other times nothing comes to mind?

When I was thirteen, I first became aware that writing was "my thing." I was chubby, awkward, and lonely. In my free time, I began to write stories of places I'd rather be, things I'd rather experience; I'd wish myself away from the torture chamber that is middle school.

All my friends would read my stories, demanding for the next chapter...until the chapters stopped coming.

Not too long after realizing I was a writer, I realized that sometimes, there's just nothing to write about. Sometimes, you'll write and say nothing, nothing at all. The words will cover the page, but they mean nothing. Ahh...writers' block:/

To me, writing is like having a relationship with God. You don't do it because it's fun. You don't do it because it's easy. You don't do it because it makes you feel good. You do it because once you've experienced it, there isn't life outside of it.

When I get writer's block, I seek inspiration from myself. I'll look at my old blog posts, poems, stories, and remind myself that my words mean something. Even if most of my posts are mediocre, the few that touch have the power to touch makes the rest worthwhile. God has given me a gift to inspire, to encourage, and to push people to see, to want, to act. I can't just abandon that. I can't leave behind the something that creates the very fiber of my being.

In my mere eighteen years, I've learned that when you've lost your passion for life, you have to remind yourself what brought you that passion and seek it with all that you have. You have to dive in headfirst, even if you think you're no longer talented, or if you believe you're no longer wanted. Sometimes, the only thing left to do is just go, and keep going. Your passion, your drive--your fervor for life will come back and be stronger than ever.

Here are some practical tips to help you keep pushing through...

1. Don't over edit. If it's not working, it's not working. Erase and start over.

2. Walk away for twenty minutes, after you write your first draft. Doing it first will invoke more procrastination, but waiting will help your revising flow better. 

3. Sometimes you just need to click "post." That's part of the process, not everything can be said perfectly, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need to be said. 

*This was done as a part of the Creative Blocks segment by "Standing on Giants" http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/creative-blocks-20-somethings/