Even if I continue working in my current job, I want to define myself as a writer by writing in the evenings and welcoming that identity with a ritual. Right now, I feel like I’m in a state of betwixt and between because I haven’t created a turning point for myself.
Even after going through the very typical, well-recognised ritual of a wedding, it still took time to feel the shift. There was a day we wrote “mother, father, me” when defining our family, and only then did something settle. That was another quiet turning point. Rituals may mark the beginning, but acceptance can take longer. Sometimes we need to name things before we can carry them.
There are times when I’m affected by the words of people around me, especially when they come from family or close friends. When something I care about is reduced to “that kind of thing,” or followed by a dismissive comment, it stays with me longer than I’d like.
It’s not easy to find people who support whatever path you take without conditions. Ironically, I’ve often received more encouragement from people who aren’t close, or who don’t really know me. Life has its own sense of humour.
Maybe that’s why rituals are necessary. They’re a way of making a promise to myself, a quiet declaration that, no matter what anyone says, I will write.
Maybe it’s also a warning. That now I’ve become a writer through this ritual, if you can’t say something kind, you can at least choose silence.
I genuinely wish more people would choose silence over judgement. Everyone has their own version of a good life, and I don’t understand those who insist theirs is universal.
In the end, I can’t control what others think or say. But I can choose what I say, and what I hold back.
I write. I am writing. And I should at least be the one who encourages that.