I am a writer.

It's never easy to get those words on the page. To open up and be vulnerable. As a writer I know that feeling when it is over. When you have written something. This relief floods through your body. Often times you sit back and go "what on earth was that". You have a little chuckle then you put that piece in a folder never to be read by anyone. Everyone is guilty of this. The problem is though, no matter who you talk to you're always told that it is best to be honest. In your writing, in your art, your opinions and thoughts. When you finally open up it is almost as if a dam has broken and you're on the side with the high pressure. The side where all that bottled up fear and paranoia has fled from. That feeling you get of relief, hold onto it. We all push it away; fix the dam and bottle shit up again. As a writer I know that some of my best work has come from just sitting down and getting all my shit down on the page. When it comes to the follow through of that work though, that is where I buckle. Where I close that document and transfer it to a folder where it will never be found again. I cannot bring myself to read back through it. To correct it. It's almost as if you're correcting yourself. Too little correction and you're too honest; people shy away from you. Too much correction and your painting that mask, the public persona, back on; people treat you like the shitty liar you are. There is no easy way out. There is no way to please everyone and be happy. In writing, in art, in your thoughts and opinions.

As a writer I am conscious of what my words are and how they will affect who I am dealing with. I also send my work to be proofread by a lot pf people, many times. One woman, a writer who has been fundamental i the process of me finding my voice and learning to love the gift I have been given, always asks me am I happy? I hate it, to this day, but i understand why she asks. My writing is my truth. It is my writing, my art, my thoughts and opinions. It is my message to the world and no one else should matter in that. I still don't know how to answer the question and I doubt that I ever will. What I have figured out however, is that you have to be vulnerable. We are human beings, with emotions and feelings. We don't have those for show, we have them so our brain doesn't build up like a dam and break. We are meant to breath, to cry, to laugh and get angry. It serves a purpose. It helps us deal with the shit that comes with being alive in this era. The era of change apparently.

We all lived in a fucked up timeline. One where who you are and how you present yourself is more important that how you are and where you want to be and what you want to do. We are told everyday that what we do must make a difference. That we are the future and must act like that. We are a generation that welcomes death, bloody hell we sit around and laugh about it. We share memes about it. We make memes about it. We are a generation aware of the shit that goes on behind closed doors; because doors are no longer ever closed. We live in a time where we have to take back control of who we are and who we want to be. What we want to do and where we want to go.

We are a generation that must take back feeling and expression. We are the generation that must welcome being human again. I am part of this generation and I have been given a gift. I was gifted with numerous opportunities that have made me who I am today and are all a part of who I will be tomorrow. I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a young woman. I am someone who sees beyond the spray tan and extensions. This is not who we are. This is who we were produced to be. We have to take back this emotional blessing and curse that we were given. We are a generation that is expected to fail. Why not do something? Screw them and their ideas of who we are and what we should be doing. Who gives a damn if the plan they set out for us is not the one we choose to follow.

​For God's sake feel. Be a human being; one with all the emotions and vulnerability we are supposed to have. Decide for yourself who you are supposed to be and who you want to be. It is your writing, your art. It is your thoughts and opinions. Live in that goddamn moment of relief.

chloen

YWP Alumni

More by chloen

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