it's not that i don't think other countries aren't fabulous too, they just aren't mine

[bedlamsbard]

You know, I think PostSecret was amazing last night, but I also think it was supposed to cheer me up, and it...kind of had the opposite effect. I'm not sure if the knot of tension in my stomach is from thinking about things that I tend to keep quiet, from cramps, or from the fact that I have to go to band today and I really, really don't want to. (Thanks for that, Tulane. No, really, thanks. Apparently in high school I was less tied up in the music and more in it for the people and the Tulane concert band's hammered that home and now it's too late in the semester to drop the class.)

I mean, I was probably overdue for one of those vaguely depressed and listless days anyway, but still. Now I'm thinking about things, and I don't want to; it makes me nervous. And some of this was already on my mind before (thanks, mom, for the lovely conversation over spring break that basically sums up as, "Why are you paying all that money to go to that fancy private school if you don't want to do anything with your life besides write? You can't make money as a writer! You should become a professor!" when I have made it pointedly clear that one of the last things in the world I want to do is stay in academia, despite the fact that both my parents are pushing it on me. The other thing on that list is teach ESL. I could do it. I really, really don't want to; my dad has a master's in ESL and look what that got him) (and don't even get me started on my father; that's one of the things I'm furious about that I don't think I could ever actually say to either of my parents, because Jesus Christ on a fucking pony and I babbled this out to my friends at dinner last night, but god, it's one of those things I don't want to think about because it's not like I can do anything about it) and some of this is stuff I've known but don't want to say for whatever reason, but now I'm thinking about it and now I'm a wreck.

Here's a secret: I love being an American. I am ridiculously fucking glad and fucking grateful that I was born in the United States of America; I love my country, ridiculous as it occasionally is, and I love the flag and the Constitution and the Declaration of Indpendence and I am so grateful and so relieved that I'm an American woman, an American citizen, in the twenty-first century. I love my country, I love her ridiculous ideals and her rights, and sometimes it terrifies me that I could have been born somewhere else, sometime else, and I wouldn't even know what I was being denied. I'm proud of being an American; I'm proud of my American passport, and I love my country.

And I was sitting in the dark being melancholy and wishing my roommate hadn't spent the night last night, but she just woke up and turned on the lights, and suddenly the world seems less depressing. FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS.

Comments

[almostinstinct.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*

[snacky]

If the opinions of a random internet stranger matter: oh man, yes, get the hell out of academia. And I'm sure you'll make money as a writer. You might have to make money do other things or other kinds of writing at first, but you're going to make money, because you're good.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thanks. *hugs*

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

If it helps any, I have periodic times where I freak out because I'm busily worrying about 'what if I'm not a good enough writer to make it in writing? what if I get stuck just teaching other people how to write or learn languages my whole life?'

It does help to have something else that you do at least have pleasure in doing. I don't really want to teach my whole life, but I wouldn't mind for a few years, and doing anything with linguistics would definitely be interesting, even if in the overall arc of things I really want to write.

It is normal, and it might pass soon and it might take a while to pass, and it will probably come back, but we'll still be here whenever it does. <3

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

What really freaks me out isn't that I worry that I'm not a good enough writer, because I don't -- I know I am. (I'm also arrogant, stuck-up, and self-centered, but hey, at least I'm aware of that.) What really terrifies me is that there's nothing else I care about as much as writing and there's nothing else I want to do. There are things I probably could do, but there's no passion there.

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm a bit better off there - I might not have much passion for teaching, but I have enough I'd enjoy the job for a bit at least.

It is a healthy thing, though, to have more than one thing to rely on. :P What else you like?

... other than reading, though I suppose you could be a book critic. <3

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I could do any number of things -- teaching, editing, some...other stuff, but there's just not much I care about.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

It's a really nice thing to see an American - a sane American, mind - saying they're proud to be one. It's been a while.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I would have said the same thing no matter who sat in the White House.

There are just days when I wake up, think of some of the crap that's going on or has gone on in the world, and thank the gods that I had the luck to be born in the good old U.S. of A.