I decided a long time ago to stop chasing passion. It was a good decision. I’d spent much of my twenties caught up in the “follow your passion and the money will come” culture. My biggest problem was I had no idea what my passion was. I made it my life’s mission to find it in the most analytical ways – devouring books like What Color is your Parachute and taking more personality tests than I care to admit. Giving up on finding my passion was the only way I could get on with building a life.
When my three children came along, I felt as if I’d stumbled into my passion: motherhood. I could finally check off this elusive goal off of my list. After a few years of juggling career, childcare, PTA, etc., I wondered if this was more of a role than a passion.
In the midst of this, I finally admitted I wanted to write – something I’d tucked away into a corner back in sophomore year of college, when I switched my major from Journalism to Accounting. But this time, I shied away from calling it my passion. Instead, I was “following my curiosity.” A word that sounded lighter, almost dainty to me.
A decade later, I’ve been writing consistently- not every day, sometimes skipping it for a week or more. But I managed to finish about a dozen short stories, four of which were published. My relationship with writing and sharing my work is complicated. I’d like to say that I love to write but I often hate it. Much of my energy is spent procrastinating, negotiating with myself to write and beating myself up when I don’t. The truth is that I need to write. This is what keeps me coming back to the page. When I stop writing, a kind of gnawing starts inside me. Physically, it manifests as low-level anxiety that buzzes softly, like a humming appliance that’s impossible to ignore. Everyone and everything around me annoy me until I become the worst version of myself: judging others, gossiping, over eating and picking fights with my family.
Finally, I give in and pick up the story I left or start a new one. The relief after even a short burst of writing is instant, akin to vomiting out a bad meal. Which is a good analogy considering the quality of what often goes onto the page. The whole inside begins to fill and I am back to being me.
I’ve practiced this pattern long enough that I’ve learned to avoid falling into it by keeping a writing habit. But what I failed to recognize until now is that my feelings and behaviors about writing are passionate feelings. I am passionate about writing. I think the reason I never put it together is that I’ve always defined it in relation to something pleasurable and easy to succumb to, never something that required determination or discipline.
After three decades of trying to find my passion, it’s crazy to think that it had always been there.
MUST LOVE CHOCOLATE 