Reticence?

Never heard of her

If you think I’m talking shit here, you should try the paid version.

---

I’m starting to feel like a “real” writer.

I know, I know, anyone who writes is a writer, but as someone who enjoys feelings maybe more than a logistician should, I need this. I need to feel it. If I feel it, I can go full-out. I’ve done so many things that never quite felt right, so whatever I do has got to convey the feeling. I’ve been open about all of my pursuits, but it’s hard to try a lot of things and fail. People will judge you for your failures until you demonstrate success. Judge me all you want, because now, I’m so deep in my feelings that judgments can’t penetrate.

How we feel about ourselves is critical. As much as I claim identity politics to be poison, identity has a place in the world. We all need to feel like we belong. Since I left academia, I haven’t had a professional identity. Sure, I’m a scientist, but I’m no longer involved in the professional practice of that pursuit. When I was practicing science, I felt free. I said what I wanted, did what I wanted. I was on my level. I even presented results that to my mentor’s disappointment were scooped. I was never reticent.

I’ve tried on a lot of identities, in full force. In biotech, I covered my tattoos from day one and tried to keep my mouth shut, but by the end, everyone knew I didn’t fit in. I had communal dinners on Cannabis farms and scoped out lab space and GC-MS/MS machines to isolate terpenes, but at the end of the day, the Cannabis business is too wild for even me. I hung out in the local bar scene pulling together events. I tried on the hoodie of a cutthroat start-up founder and let energy drinks and coffees pile up next to my three-screen setup while I was doing the dry-ass software developer gig. I even kicked it with board game nerds at the shittiest dives in Portland. Peddling my games in cities across the US was not fun, but I did meet the owner of this:

I tried to fit each identity I zipped up over myself, but they were all clunky and suffocating. I wore them as closely as I could, but the funny thing is that I’d come back to my journals and word documents and write everything I felt I couldn’t say out loud. I was trying to be these things that I wasn’t sure I could be. I’d come home to my zone, and I felt like I could strip off all of the extra shit and just breathe.

I have considered for many years that writing could be the right path for me, but I was scared to really pursue it. I can admit that after leaving academia, I felt tied to the money. How could I justify leaving the academic route that I wanted so badly to fucking write? Taking this leap has been terrifying. It’s not like getting my Ph.D. That was easy. I was on a track, and by the end, I’d have a versatile degree with several prescribed paths, which I took. Writing is nebulous and creative. There’s no real template. I can’t extrapolate where I’ll be in a year or ten. It’s fucking terrifying, and I’m loving it. I’m still afraid of saying what I need to say, but I’m saying it anyway.