You're Wasting Your Time...

"You are wasting your time... That is not going to get you anywhere... Why are you bothering to do that?"

I heard these phrases so many times growing up. It seemed like no matter what I was doing, it was a waste. So many dreams just squashed like a tiny bug under a huge boot. Now all these years later I look back and I wonder just how many dreams of mine were lost. How many talents did I just throw away and let wilt? The hardest part was, I was a child. I was barely if even in my teens. Yet, I still hear those words, echoing around in my head. What would I have become had I had the support in my interests that every child deserves?

I can remember a standout time or two in my life when those words above caused a fork in my road of life. By the age of ten, I had fallen in love with writing. I was always writing and was actually rather proud of my work. I had in a short time handwritten, we didn't have the money for a computer, a book. It filled a three-ring binder, front and back of the pages. Not one of those small half inch ones either, this was almost a two inch three ring binder and growing.

One day while writing, my father came in to do his usual, which was to yell at me for who knows what. I was mid-sentence and continued to write, I needed to finish the thought. That, and as I said, yelling at me was a normal occurrence so by this time it had little shock factor. As I finished and was getting ready to look up and let him say what he had to say, my book was ripped out from under my arms. Upon taking my book from me his rant changed to how he could not understand why I would waste my time on writing and that it would get me nowhere in life. I remember him calling it garbage and useless, finally, as he handed it back to me. I walked past him. Pulled out the kitchen trash can and ripping a handful of pages out I dropped it in. Without a word, without a tear to be seen by him, I left it in the trash and walked back to my room.

It took years for me to start writing again and when I did it was like a floodgate being opened. I spent all of high school clutching a notebook. If I was not holding it close to my chest it was being written on or I was using it as a pillow. I continued to write after leaving high school. That was until I meet The Pitbull. No, not a dog but a person and another story. Soon my writing was under attack again, this time being used against me and my....character. Not sure that is the right word, but it had police at one point questioning the type of person I was. Once again my writing was tucked away and the dream forgot/abandoned. These words and thoughts in my head were only going to cause one of two, or both, outcomes. They were either going to get me nowhere or being questioned.

We are going to jump back in time though to the current time. As I sit here and type this out. As I look at the notebook I have been making little notes in. As the words swirl and mingle in my head, I still need to remind myself of a few things. One, my writing may not make me rich and famous, I may not become a best-seller, but I will not let the discouragement of other people stop me, not anymore. Second, the truest forms of art come from our heart, our emotions, what we feel, and have lived. Therefore, no one can take that away from a person. The last and most important one being the quote on the homepage here. Something I think all writers, wait no, all people, need to remind themselves of. What is it you have to say to the world and are you brave enough to say it in whatever form it comes in?