A storyteller and a dreamer

What happens, when all that will ever be written has been written, and we have nothing left to write? What shall be written then? Will words become the seasons, the tides, the rising and setting of the sun? Will everything that has been written, be written again, and nothing new shall arise to take its place? Who will drive lessons and stories and thoughts into the future, with change and difference? Are we meant to speak the same things, and never spew forth something new? 

For what am I, if not a teller of tales or a dreamer of dreams? What shall I speak that has not been spoken before? What will make my words stand out, become something fresh and vibrant and grab the attention of a world transfixed in the same pattern, hearing the same story over and over, never leaving the comfort of the known? Am I bound by the code this planet is chained to? 

I am afraid. I am afraid of losing my spark of difference. I am afraid of succumbing to the grievous patterns of stories gone by. I yearn to talk, to listen, to understand, to liken myself to a strange new something. So long as it is new, so long as it breathes and acts unlike anything that is already out there. 

Is this a false dream? Is this an impossible hope? For truly, what am I without my words? Who am I without my dreams? I am not someone to keep this longing inside, I am not someone to cower in the shadows while another fills the space where I am meant to be. I am not a coward, I am not a follower; but neither am I a hero, nor a leader. I am somewhere in-between what is known and what is not known. I am a drifter, a seeker, someone in want. 

I will not succumb to the turning of the tides, I will not have my words become as the seasons, I will not die without being a change, a shift, a chasm in the world’s reality. I am afraid, but this fear is born of the past. This year has been a new chapter, a short story with a strange title, the beginning of the unfamiliar. 

Never have I ventured into these uncharted waters, without the support of family, friends, school, university - predictable reality. I am like a boat without oars, yet I battle against the current. With my hands I beat the waves of the expected. I have no anchor, I find no tether to my previous life. My heart beats with longing and distress. Can I make it? Can I navigate these waters? Can I resist the urge to set sail for home, where certainty and comfort awaits? 

The beginning has come, the tides have changed, where have I to go but forward? 

Am I not a storyteller and a dreamer?  

Finding the joy.

It’s only when you truly begin to understand yourself and your idiosyncrasies that you can affect the way you feel. For instance, I was feeling irrationally sad earlier. Morbid even. Then I remembered something funny about myself – that writing about it would heal me. It’s strange how in the lunacy of life you can forget the vital keys to your own happiness. I have gone almost 6 years living in this whirlwind of study and work and failed relationships and broken friendships. And in that six years, I lost sight of what made me who I am. I lost sight of the simple pleasures in life. I forgot what it felt to be content. I forgot what it felt like to be WHOLE.

Now here I sit, after a 2 month holiday in the United States. A frantic and exciting journey it was, to say the least. How strange it was to realise that I was once again happy, and once again feeling blessed. That I could remember what made me smile – but more importantly, what gave me joy.

I love to write. Writing, to me, is the simplest yet the most brilliant form of expression. If you can write, you can create. And if you can create, then you are virtually unstoppable.

When I write, I am the creator. I am the inspiration. I am the story. I bring words to life. I bring characters and plots and twists and turns into being. I can manipulate the events and I can envision the outcome. But the single best part about writing is that so long as you’re satisfied with your own words on the page, then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You created it and it’s yours. It’s only true purpose is to serve you – to serve your own joy and contentedness.

And this, my friends, is why I write today. I have rediscovered the simplistic beauty of taking joy in your own handiwork. I have found my muse again. I know it wasn’t lost, but to have discovered it again is like finding the $50 you stored away for safekeeping but couldn’t remember the hiding place. My writing has more value than $50 to me – to me, its price cannot be named.

Ah, such joy this is.