I often fear that my annus mirabilis has already passed, or worst - that I wouldn't have one at all. This isn’t some quarter life crisis shit; this is quite a concrete concern. Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have lived your life thinking yourself to be one thing, only to be told otherwise, or to one day look in the mirror and to see someone else standing before you. It’s a terrifying thought. Will you start again? Will you convince yourself to assume the identity that the mirror tells you you are? Or, will you defend -- with all your heart, body, soul and stinking guts -- the you you think you truly are deep (deep, deep, deep down) inside? Lately, I spend at least a few hours a day reassessing my life; thinking about what I've already done and what I could've done instead, or where I would be if I'd done something else. I think this is what people call quarter life crisis. I think that I'd much rather refer to it as a wake up call. Across me, a pile of empty notebooks call out to me Wake up, Tisa.
It doesn’t help that I’ve somewhat ignited a John Keats addiction. Read the poor fellow’s entire (short but productive) life. In a letter, he told his brother how he felt that if he wouldn't be a poet, he would destroy himself. Sometimes I feel the same intensity for writing, but before I set out to write, insecurities, fears, laziness get a hold of me first. Worst is that I succumb to them. I let them eat me up, almost invitingly, until no more is left of me but regrets. Not like Keats, who wrote still even after criticisms and rejections; who thought himself insignificant ("having left no immortal work behind him") but continued writing until his death. I wish I can be passionate like that. Wake up, Tisa!
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