My list of aborted dreams

Locking myself up in a surreal place, listening to the same song over and over again, until the pages are full – that is how writing the witching novel lately has looked like for me.
And it makes me feel so close to my biggest and oldest dream!

The unreal place is the attic of a friend’s house, where a black cat visits me to keep me writing, and walls of bookshelves as well as portraits of the pope and the queen are watching me.
Weird combination?
I know.

How else to write a witching novel?!

While typing myself through the night and the early morning hours there, sitting on antic furniture, enjoying the warm colors of the wood all around, a determination has gotten hold of me again. Or, I‘d rather call it motivation.

I want to finish this novel! I believe in its potential! It is a novel I would read!

While these thoughts take hold of me, I have to remember for how long I have already wished to be a writer! And, while remembering how this precious dream entered my life so long ago, I also realize that my dreams and I have a dark history, a twisted relationship, and definitely have to sort some things out.

This post not about praising my novel, which I so hope will be good enough and make me more of the writer I eventually wish to be.

I am writing this to take a look at all of my dreams I have given up.

Recently, I had to give it much thought.
The pandemic caused a chaos in my life that I could not recover from over night, and some parts are still kind of damages. I am lucky enough to have found a day job I enjoy, but I never finished my teaching degree, because of exam fear (and other problems). While looking into that and searching for why I avoided my very last exam, after my thesis was done and everything seemed ready, I realized that I was afraid of this one last performance. One last oral exam, a question-answer-hour dedicated to chemistry! This little witch facing an experienced wizard and explaining how things work – terrifying!

The thing about avoiding is not that you are lazy, or just want to avoid effort. Avoiding means running from a necessary situation at all means, because my whole existence seems to be incapable of withstanding it.

And why was I so weak? Why was my voice suddenly gone? Why did I stare at my peace of paper and failed to draw the structure of a water molecule?
Or, maybe even the more urgent question to find an answer to, where the hell has my strength gone and how do I get it back?

So far, I came to realize that this is not much first time of letting things I have worked for drop because of anxiety issues. It is just more obvious and serious now, because I was 27 years old when it happened, and not a confused teen.

So, which versions of myself, dreams to live by, goals to achieve did I already throw out, because I suddenly felt like a failure and was really into avoiding interacting with that?

Here is a list.

My list of aborted dreams.

(Oh my …)

Writing!

I discovered that I wanted to write novels when I was 8 years old. At that age, I was writing fantasy stories, and I finished some of them, in the form of 300 handwritten pages.
Although I was just a child, my family was very worried about me thinking I could make a living as a writer, so it kind of always was an issue.

Music!

I learned to play the violin, to sing, and was yearning to be on stage all my life.
I also joined a bigger orchestra, with which I even played concerts in other European countries! I will never forget living on a bus on our journey through Switzerland, Italy, or Czech Republik!

17 year old me. Or, my 17 year old violin arm.

Theater!

17 year old me giving everything in an abstract performance.

When I was 15 years old, I discovered the theater scene in Germany, and joined some groups for young people at big houses in Hamburg, where I lived at the time.

I was young, and I was dreaming of writing, being on stage and just doing all of these creative things that made my life feel better. I did not write a novel at the time, but I was writing. I was writing plays, poetry, short stories! And they were used a lot on the projects I was in.

My biggest success when I was 19 years old was that joined an experimental version of „Romeo and Juliet“ at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. For that, a larger group of boys and girls where cast to perform, dance and play this modern version of the old tale. You can take a look at here, if you wish.

But I stopped all of it.

Music at first.
Playing in that orchestra had been my dip into high society. I was surrounded by rich, well-raised people that were perfect in everything they did and raised to be successful. When musician was not an option, they studied medicine or law, and spent the summers all over the world, fluent in 6 languages and dressed in expensive brands.

I was only there because I played the violin quite well. My parents never supported in explicitly and were quite poor, especially in comparison.

So, after 3 years I felt so out of place, I stopped going.
Maybe I was just done with classical music, I said to myself, and swore to not abandon my violin, but honestly: For a long time I did.

So, music was done.

Then, at the theater, I also made some tough experiences. It is a tough scene to be in, and as a young woman you have to fight a lot of stereotypes and sexist comments. Me always having been goth and curvy was not easy. Once, a young director called me the impersonation of rape traume women nowadays grew out of.
It was about there, that I wanted to leave.
Oh, and a female director told me to cut off my hair and stop wearing red nails.
I thought to myself, I am just going to hate this if I continue, and politely stepped away from it.

At 20, I had said goodbye to my creative dream.
I was not planning on being on stage ever again.
I did not play my instruments anymore.
I stopped singing even for myself.

But, I never stopped writing.

Although, I wrote in secret.
I did not want to be the stupid girl that kept writing and writing and never got published. If I should ever get published and no one knew about me writing at all, nice suprise! If not, I at least did not fail.

Since 20 is the standard age in Germany to attend university, I began to study something. Philosophy, Linguistics, and eventually I ended up in special education.

I was, ironically, wearing short hair at the time. No goth clothes, and no red nails. I wrote in secret, and my family was very happy that I was finally planning on something so normal as becoming a teacher.

To be clear, I love working with kids, and although I am not a teacher in school, that is still what I do for a living.

Still, my fear of not getting this reasonable goal of finish that educational degree done was big. I was having a strict routine to have it under control.

And the pandemic scattered all of it.

I was alone with my scarred and terrified self again.

And it was in those lockdown months, when my friends out of reach, I had lost my job and the university was closed down, that I looked at my instruments again. And my novels I had drafted in secrecy.

And I felt how much I had given up on myself.

And don‘t get me wrong, also me not being able to finish my degree is a way of giving up on myself. I studied to be a basic science teacher for 4 years! I am able to do this!

But so weakened and scattered as I am right now, I am not able to do it.

I have to find my strength again, and keep it!
The way I see it, I have to stop discarding versions of me in fear of ultimate failure, and be me! With all my facets. When I look at pictures of the teacher-to-be-me, I see a shallow person, because I stunted myself to hopefully not fail at life.

My family has never been supportive of me and the pandemic has reduced my contact to them to an almost non-existent level. The only one I sometimes talk to, is my mother, and it makes our relationship difficult that I am so much into creative things again.

But I have to, to keep in touch with myself!

My goals are:

• writing my novels
• working on my music (I actually have a project started)
• Going back on stage
• Finish my degree

And I need to be in touch with the whole of me to get that done.

So, what I really want to say is that it is difficult to be determined when you are thin skinned and lack people having your back, but without being yourself, you will lack your strength, like I did.

Damn, this was personal.