#17: My BF Doesn't Know Me As An Artist. Have I Sealed My Fate?

Writer's write...right?

Me on December 22, 2022 at 7:28 a.m., staring down a *very* blank screen while attempting to write my novel. Because writer’s write….right?

Hello Hayes,

This isn't exactly relationship advice — well, maybe my relationship with myself. Growing up, I always considered myself creative. An artist. I was a writer, a dancer, I did theater and made films. I wrote a novel with a friend, and I intended it to be the first of many. I studied film in college, made short films and wrote screenplays, and fantasized about being a professional video editor and writing and directing films.

And then I graduated, had to get 2 low-paying jobs, and was working crazy hours just to get by, with no time for anything else, even art. I started desperately searching for a job, any job, that would pay enough to work normal hours. I got one, and it was just a basic administrative job, but that was okay. I saw it as a smart move: work here for a couple of years and write on the side, and then I'll be able to move into a job in my field.

Except, I didn't write on the side, or make films, or do freelance video editing. It was like where I'd once been brimming with ideas and inspiration, it was all just... gone. I would try to write something, anything, and nothing would come. I would Google writing prompts just to try and get started, and end up crying with frustration that it felt like pulling teeth to get any words at all on a page. My writing buddy friend slowly stopped asking if I was working on anything because the answer was always no. Then the pandemic happened and I stayed in that job longer than I'd ever planned.

Now I’m in a job with better pay and benefits, but very much in the corporate world and uncreative. I feel like I've sealed my fate and lost myself. I look around at friends and college classmates working as professional writers and filmmakers, posting on social media about their creative successes. I look around at my family, who are all making music or art professionally or even just in their free time, and I feel like I've failed. I wonder whether I really miss writing or if I just miss thinking of myself as a writer. If I were a writer, wouldn't I, you know, write? I feel completely lost and directionless.

My boyfriend, my life partner, the man who knows me better than anyone ever has, has never known me as a writer or artist. How do I reconcile who I always thought I'd be with who I am? How do I find meaning in my boring corporate life? How do I go back to being creative, or how do I know if I should stop trying?

Thank you,

Identity Crisis

Hello Identity Crisis, 

Writers write, yes. Writers also agonize, catastrophize, dilly dally. We think about putting words on the page more often than we actually do, because that’s when our words are most impressive — when they’re still in the imagination. Writers avoid writing because it makes us come to terms with how mediocre we really are. Writing is hard shit. 

I understand the pressure you feel and the desire you have to be this artistic dream girl, sweet Identity Crisis, but I need to see you be just a little more gentle with yourself. You haven’t failed at anything. Realize that you’ve been hustling to get your basic needs met — and you’ve succeeded. You’ve found a steady and safe-enough job after working a destabilizing two. That alone is worth congratulations. It doesn’t surprise me that during that time, while you were simply trying to stay afloat, you stopped making things “on the side.” You were exhausted, perhaps you still are. Your focus was where it needed to be, we cannot be everywhere and everything at once. It makes sense that now, when things have calmed down, your focus is shifting back towards a time when you were younger and your dreams abundant. 

Your question is an interesting one: Do I miss writing, or do I miss thinking of myself as a writer? Aren’t they the same thing? We write for many reasons, sure, but one of them is certainly because we see ourselves as writers, and we want to prove that thought to be true. I don’t write because I lo0o0o0o0ve the feeling of staring at a blank page, of having to string together sentences that appear effortless and revelatory to the reader. When I take a week off writing, that agony is not what I miss. What I miss is the pride I feel in finishing. I miss the flow I sometimes find while working, though it only happens every so often. (Now realizing: Writer’s flow is my version of runner’s high, which if you follow me on insta, you’ll remember my husband Brian explaining to me and I was like…wow…bummer that I’ll never feel that.)

Brob (Brian) explaining runner’s high to me after one of his epic runs.

There’s a chance that you’re not a writer, but I don’t think it’s likely. You won’t know if you don’t try, and I know you’ve tried, but I think you’ve been setting yourself up for failure in your efforts. You’ve been trying with too much pressure. The only way I finished the first draft of my novel is because I removed all pressure for it to be any good. There are several chapters that are truly just stage directions (“Geraldine will go to the other room and then she’ll see her brother and they’ll have a conversation about the thing”) — that’s how shitty this first draft is. But it doesn’t matter! My goal was to finish, not to be perfect. Allow yourself that courtesy, too. Right now, your writing, your videos, whatever it is you want to make — none of it needs to be any good. It just needs to exist. Stop demanding your writing be charming when it hasn't seen the light of day in years. Words are just like us: They'll never step out if they think they’re going to be judged when they open the door. They need to be welcomed with their knotty hair and bloodshot eyes, and only when you meet them with a smile and a comb will they start cleaning themselves up on their own. 

Reading your letter, it seems like you see your job as the thing that took away your ability to be an artist. What would happen if instead, you saw your job as the thing that allows you to be an artist? Without the steadiness and boredom of your corporate day job, you would be intellectually spent when you get home. If you didn’t know where your money was coming from, you’d feel too stressed and guilty to put your time towards your art. Don’t you see? Your writing is not the thing you do on the side — your job is. Your job is your side gig that affords you the brain space and financial freedom to make whatever you want. 

The line about your boyfriend, I felt that in my gut. (See! Only a writer could conjure such feeling.) Your life partner will see you as an artist once you start believing that you are one. Brian was once a competitive runner, he went to a D1 school for track but then he quit because he didn’t want the student athlete life. When we lived in New York City, he rarely ran. He hated the route and stretching in our tiny apartment and because it wasn’t enjoyable, he chose not to run. Did I stop seeing him as a runner for those five years? No, because he still saw himself as one. Now that we live in California he runs three or four times a week. He’s not winning medals, he’s not racing marathons. But he’s a runner, just like folks can be runners even when they take months or years off of running. They’re runners even on their off days. You, Identity Crisis, have remained an artist the whole time you stopped making things. You’ve just been waiting for the right conditions. And now that they’re here, you’re going to make something out of them. You’re going to use your words. 

Yours,

Hayes