Ruminations, continued.

VIII

 

 

In the first year of my time in the Creative Writing program, I learned exactly nothing.  In the second year, I learned less than nothing.  As I said, I had lost my style of writing, my very voice.  The novel I had been working on for three years, the novel that had been my monomania, was buried in a box.  I had no other story to tell.   

 

As the class was coming to an end that second year, the would be writer professor asked us one by one if we would be continuing in the program and taking the final year course.  I was asked in my turn, and I thought hard about it.  My destiny.  Another year of this. 

 

"No," I said simply. 

 

He nodded as he made a mark on his paper, but to my eye he seemed relieved that I would not be continuing in the program.   

 

With that simple moment my destiny came to an end.  Thus ended my dream. It was not to be.  I should have felt shattered, but in truth I felt nothing but numb self loathing.  The only thing I had thought I had truly excelled at was writing.  It turned out I was terrible at it.  The only thing I had ever wanted to be was a writer.  That was not going to happen.  The only thing that had brought me to this place, I was now walking away from.  As on that long go evening, when I became lost at a high school, and ended up in the seminar room for the presentation on this university, I felt God's finger pointing.  Only this time, instead of pointing out the way of my future, he was pointing directly at me, and saying "Hah! Sucker." 

 

Once again, I had the lost feeling that comes from being adrift.  If I was not going to be a writer, what was I to be?  Once again,  the question of "Now what?"  was all I could see before me as I returned to my summer job and prepared for my final year of university.