The Passage of Time
Finding a place in the writing world.
On Friday, it was my birthday. I'm 41. Yet if my 40s are supposed to feel like some type of mid-life milestone, I haven't been affected that way.
I feel much the same way I did ten years ago, maybe with a few more aches and pains. My kids are older and that's a marked passage of time, but my days have a similar structure of work and parenting.
Of course, some things are undeniably different. I'm now self-employed. I write substantially more than I did when my kids were little. But I've always been really clear about who I am and what I want to do.
Ten years ago, I had different aspirational goals. I wanted to be an executive at the tech company I worked for. That came to fruition when I was 32. Even though I was very clear-eyed about what I wanted, when I finally got the role I'd craved for so long it wasn't what I was expecting. I'd seen the foundational cracks from the outside, and thought I could fix things. I couldn't.
Even though I never saw myself as self-employed, I'm now wholly convinced that this is what I'm supposed to do for the rest of my life. I don't even say "the rest of my career" because retirement feels like an odd thing to say as a writer. Will I ever stop writing?
The only thing that reminds me that I'm getting older is that I haven't written a book yet. It's something I desperately want to do.
When I was younger, I was limited by "being a parent of young children." Parenting was all-consuming, and my days ended with utter exhaustion.
Now my kids are older, but I still feel limited. I write more than ever before, but it's client work (which is how I get paid), creating resources for solopreneurs, and maintaining an online social presence (which is also how I get paid). Writing a book for personal fulfillment is hard to fit into that schedule, especially now that I'm also a chauffeur for my older kids.
But there's another big difference between then and now. In my young adulthood, I didn't believe that I could publish a book. I didn't think I had enough talent. I compared myself to writers who could craft dazzling stories of fiction and I thought, "That's not me. I don't write like that." I couldn't see my place in the writing world.
I've realized now that there is an audience for my style of writing. The Internet has made it possible to find those people, because traditional publishers are no longer the gatekeepers.
A few years ago, a writing friend told me that one of the biggest secrets of successful writers is that they keep showing up. It doesn't necessarily have to do with their talent, but that they don't quit. Most people will quit when they don't gain traction.
Since I've gotten over the hump of thinking I can't and believe I can, now it's a question of making that happen. And fuels my biggest fears. With aging comes the increased awareness of dying. Of dying prematurely due to illness or a freak accident. When we're young, we feel invincible. When we've reached middle age (is that what I am?), far less so.
My commitment to myself over the next year is to make time for book writing. To carve out a small amount of time for planning and writing every week. To turn that dream into a reality.
Anna Burgess Yang