00 PyRo 00 
Posts: 69
(9/14/03 11:45 am)
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Torn
All my life I’ve wanted to be a writer. It’s what I always imagined myself doing, sitting in a big, warm house somewhere, snow falling outside, a fire burning inside, and me, my ideas making that exhilarating cycle from mind to pen to paper.
For a few years of my childhood I lived for this memory. I elaborated it. I made it into a heaven of something so terribly desirable and beautiful that the thought of failure couldn’t possibly cross my mind. I already was a writer.
Adolescence struck. And with it, reality.
At some point during those uncertain years, what had been my greatest certainty became my greatest impossibility. The list of doubts was long and growing with each day that passed. I could never become a writer. It was too hard. Too unlikely. Doesn’t make enough money.
And one more thing my mind was too afraid to face.
Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t good enough.
This revelation grew and grew over those next few years until the mere thought of writing inspired a great bout of insecurity and depression. My dream became an unspoken, unrealized, forbidden desire. I bottled it away inside of me, compressing it until it became a barely noticeable tug at the back of my mind.
However, as these things will do, it exploded and became even more persistent than before. I thank my English teacher for this. She approached the class with a writing contest. Win, and you get twenty dollars.
Immediately, I knew what I would do. I entered the contest, ten pages of my heart and mind converted to ink and paper.
I did not win, but it made me realize how much writing meant to me. How I felt empty and fake without it. How, without it, there seemed to be no future.
For the next few months, I wrote until I felt my heart would burst. The secure, prosperous, but dull future I had planned for myself had suddenly been usurped, and standing in its place was my breathtaking dream, a shining, perfect, unblemished thing.
I was thirteen at the time. This titanic tug of war between the two continued for the next two years, and still I could not reach a decision.
Now, at fifteen, I stand at a crossroads. Cars pile up behind, honking, screeching, pressuring me to make a decision. There’s no turning back. Once I choose, it will be for life. I look right, then left.
The road to my right is the well-beaten path, the paved stone road of prosperity and surety. In this road, off in the distance, is a sturdy building, not too big, not to small, but just right. It is plain, but well made, and a certain satisfied luminescence peeks out between its cracks. The road that leads to this building is uphill, and arduous, but there are many handholds by its sides, and steps are cut into the worn stone. My family and friends line its sides, beckoning to me with anger, with logic, and with love.
To my left, a barely noticeable path through thick, unnavigable forest. At times, it practically disappears, only to reappear in a place unknown. Giant weeds are strewn haphazardly throughout, sharp spines glistening with the promise of venom. Several side paths lead away from it, only to end in sheer walls of wood and rejection. It is a lonely path, with room for only one. At the end of this path, a dark cave, with a tiny pinpoint of light at the end. The mere sight of this light sends my heart into conniptions, and I unconsciously take a step toward it. It winks with the promise of contentment, of a realized dream, of the paradise I created in my mind ten years ago. However, I hesitate. The path is so difficult, and so vague. The walls of wood close in, the light fades, and I sigh, and back out.
The crossroads loom before me, the yellow sign in front depicting two oppositely positioned arrows. I stare at it, torn.
More cars pile up behind me. People lean through their windows, and shout. My family’s calls to the right grow more persistent. The light to the left grows brighter, more beautiful.
A cacophony of noises rings clashingly in my mind, drowning out all of my thoughts.
I still cannot decide. My breath grows shallow and harsh, my body sweating, leaning in both directions at once, changing decisions a million times a minute. The pressure builds behind me, around me, inside me. My family calls to me, their tones growing urgent, but all I can see is the light. Which one do I choose? Down what path should I commit?
Left or right?
Left or right?
Left or rig -
?
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