The Identity Crisis, Part 2

Last year, I wrote The Identity Crisis, and wondered if passion could ever be profession.

I’m still wondering.

But not even a year later, my focus has shifted.

“And here lies the identity crisis,” I wrote. There are two things I want more than anything in this world, more than I want to be a leader or a manager. To write, and to be a mama.”

I’m no longer worried about choosing between the corporate ladder and my creative calling. Instead, I’m reaching out into the dark, hoping to grasp something that I was meant to do.

I can feel in my soul that I’m supposed to be a writer, and even deeper than that, I know I’m meant to be a mama.

But sometimes it feels like I won’t ever accomplish either of these things, and it is daunting.

The literary agent rejections and the negative pregnancy tests are beating me down, like boulders tumbling uncontrollably down a mountain. I am drowning in failure as I sink deeper and deeper into dark waters that I don’t know how to navigate. This is not the map I illustrated for myself.

This is something else entirely.

I can’t write. My novel has seen no success, and there’s no room in my headspace to create something new. I simply can’t wrap my mind around building a new world. I can’t dedicate the energy, because I am facing my worst nightmare: infertility.

And it’s draining.

It’s all I think about.

Sometimes, I feel so lost.

I have steps to take. Things to do. There is nowhere to go but forward, and forward I shall go. One day, one hour, one word at a time.

But who am I, if not a writer?

Who am I, if not a mama?

Who?

And here lies the identity crisis, part 2.

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