Solace

Locations

90640
United States
34° 0' 53.6724" N, 118° 6' 23.0976" W
90640
United States
34° 0' 53.6724" N, 118° 6' 23.0976" W

For a long time I searched
For the thing that brought me solace.
When I was young I loved to read,
And my sister wanted to be an author
And being the little sister,
Naturally I did too.
But I was told by other people
That wanting to be a writer at eight years old was weird,
So that dream died pretty fast.
Then I wanted to be a meteorologist
And first woman president,
But by third grade I learned that running a country was more than living in a fancy house and being famous,
And that tornadoes scared me half to death
So I started singing.
I'd belt it out in my bedroom,
And decided that I would be in Annie on Broadway
And The Sound of Music
And Phantom of the Opera
And Rent
And Wicked
And High School Musical
But then I learned in ninth grade
That people really don't like to be around
The girl who is constantly singing show tunes
And that trying to become an actor
Essentially means starving to death
Unless you're good,
But by sophomore year,
I was kind of over musicals anyway.
And then I tried falling in love,
But that just fucked me up,
Which I guess was okay in the end,
But then I knew that being a big romancer was out of the question too.
Then I looked to fashion
Which seemed promising
But again, I just couldn't find my niche there,
So I decided movies were my thing,
And they still kind of are,
But movies are hard
And even though I've never been one
Who does something for the money,
I knew the movie business was a cutthroat one,
And I like to eat generally,
So even though I really felt at home at the cinema,
I was stuck,
And still not completely satisfied.
But through all those times when I was unsure about my future career,
I'd usually find myself writing something on the side,
Just for fun.
I can't tell you how many novels I started,
Or the unfinished essays I wrote about silly things.
And then there was a screenplay,
And that stupid blog,
And short stories,
And hundreds of poems.
But I thought writing was hard and frustrating,
And I never assumed I was good enough for publication,
So I never put much stock into writing.
And then one day it hit me like a baseball bat to the jaw
That even though meteorologists
And politicians and singers and actors and housewives and designers
Are all fine and dandy things,
I'm not any of those them at heart.
I think I've always been a writer,
I was just too concerned with what people said
To realize that what they thought was weird
Was the exact thing I needed.
Maybe it is a little weird
That I stay up to midnight thirty writing scatterbrained poetry
And scenes for slightly jilted movies,
But I have yet to star in a show,
Go to a football game,
Or meet a guy
Who brings me as much peace as a good pile of words.
It's like the sword in the stone.
If you pull too hard,
Nothing will happen,
But if you're gentle,
You become king.
I searched for years
To find my place
But I guess eight year-old me had it right,
And maybe I've come full circle.

Would you believe
That in a plain old notebook and pen,
I found the thing on this world
That brings me the most
Solace?

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