The Life of a Writer

Coming up with just a few short weeks (6 to be exact) until I am done with classes I have begun thinking about what is next. I have to write and complete and defend a thesis (of which I have written none nor written my proposal) but essentially I am looking at a summer filled with working, writing, and preparing to make the great leap of moving away for a short or possibly long time. We still have not picked a place but that doesn't bother me. I feel as if wherever we do go will be an adventure and I have no problem moving back home should it not work out. I have burned no bridges.

But I have been asked, more and more, every day, what I am going to do when I finish my degree. This question almost feels as if it is my final exam, my ultimate test to graduate with a Master's. It's as if to earn this, I must know what to do with it. That is simply not the case. Finding the time to write even this simple blog is a challenge and I don't even have any readers! (except you Mom and Dad, hello.) But I do have high hopes for what my life is going to look like not only after I complete my classes and final papers, but what it will look like when I move somewhere new. Naturally I will find a job, either in my field or out of it, but I believe my great, grand, magnificent answer to all those wondering faces is that what I intend to do - is live my life and write about it. I want to have the time and freedom to try and get published and from what I've heard and read - that is a job in and of itself. So, if it means I need to work in a Starbucks or some restaurant or something somewhere that will pay the bills and have the freedom to leave work at work and come home to write and submit - then that's what I'm going to do.

And I think, honestly, that's the reason I want to move away. I am not a fan of the Midwest, true, but the winters aren't all that bad. This town isn't all that dull. It's just not as inspiring. And I know myself, if I stayed, I would work constantly. Having two jobs again, I would end up working six days a week, dawn til dusk. And to NOT do that is what I've been saving for. Of course I'll work wherever I go, but I also want to have days off, nights off, weekends off, to observe my surroundings and what those surroundings are doing and stirring in my soul. I want to write about that. I want to write about being displaced and actively experiencing the unfamiliar. There is a familiar face on every corner and I already know their stories here. I want to meet new faces and have the opportunity to envision their stories without already knowing them. It's going to be hard. It's going to be scary. But it's going to be worth it if I can get even one experience, one story, one glimmer of inspiration and at the very least AFFIRMATION that I was able to get out, leave, move out on my own. So let the official count-down begin. In roughly six months I hope to be packing up, heading out, looking sharply around every corner for inspiration and hope of something magnificent.