I have spent the last 3 years or so unfocused to allow my interests to wander so that my passions might be revealed. It was a leap of faith, as I am not a trusting person by nature, anymore. I wouldn’t say that I’ve “found myself” so much as I found that I put myself last.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I see now where there are gaping holes in my discipline, where I am intimidated to push forward. Chasing your dreams is no whimsical task. Building the strength to push into a future of unknown hardships is intimidating.

I’ve sacrificed so much and failed before. But at the same time, while I might have bruises on my ego, or less than I’d hoped to have gathered, I have few regrets and have made progress all the same.

Honestly, so much turmoil could have been avoided if I wasn’t caught up in making steps and allowed myself to mull over my desires. In 2019 I vowed to ‘remain’, to be still, and in 2021 I am just starting to reap the benefits of that mantra.

I still don’t know what exactly I want. That’s the crazy thing. But I do know that there are parts of me that need to be creative. I need to write. I need to paint. I hope that my path forward has room for these pieces of me, & I hope the world has a desire to embrace my talents.

I fear what so many creatives fear; that my work put to word or canvas is not “good enough” for praise. Perhaps social media was the wrong place to be sharing my work all along. What I no longer wonder, however, is if I have talent. And that’s a heavy burden lifted off my chest.

I’ve always struggled with making friends. I’m not sure what I do wrong, but the computer has proven just as challenging a place to forge connections as any playground ever was. I think my poetry itself was born out of needing to express myself to someone else. Anyone. Literally. But I can’t tell when a person is just who they are or when I’m interacting with a person set on making their given name a ‘brand’. Not that a fault them either way. It’s the nature of what these places have become. And that’s not entirely any one person’s fault.

I’ve become a bit of a walnut, however, because of it. I don’t want to share my new work, and I’m intimidated by the process of publishing. I’m at a crossroads because I’ve loved the freedom of my own space but can’t bridge the gap to making it lucrative in any capacity.

This rat-race mentality is why I deleted a successful poetry IG and left game journalism/blogging. Even though I was able to make a small income, it was never enough to justify the time and money necessary to invest in making myself simply *visible.

For a long time this made me feel so bitter. I couldn’t afford the time or $$ to invest in a program at any of the colleges or retreats my favorite modern poets are involved in. & the friendships I’d try to build in these communities would fade just as quickly as they blossomed. And my art being ripped-off on Poetizer by my discord “friends” in the unofficial group really pierced my heart. Not to mention that the admin hardly crediting me for the group prompt felt like bad form and makes me feel like we’re not friends at all. Which considering that we’d been talking online for years hurt my feelings.

The time to remain seems to have come to an end for me, but where to go now? If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much! If you feel the same way I feel, let’s talk. If you have advice, I am humbly all ears. I want to shatter the looking glass & make your acquaintance. -♥ Paige