Notes on Honesty

thoughts on this year as it draws to an end

When I started writing on this platform, I wanted to be like everyone else.

The famous accounts. The ones quoted on Instagram. The ones already on the peak. You cannot be at a peak without climbing it though, you would point out to me. And you would be right. I have never been at a peak without taking the steps towards it. In writing, my first drafts were without structure and chock-full of cardboard characters. In reading, I sat with other kids in my class, Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl in my hands, botching pronounciation and tripping on words. In talking to people (years after trying to swerve past my introversion), I rushed through my words, made notes on what to say in my head. I still stumble sometimes. I still wish I could have been something… more.

Perhaps it’s a recurring problem when writers think in story-arcs. Oh,.. the transition point. Oh… the call to adventure! And life normally does not follow conventional story structures. It’s not a novel. I see it more as a collection of short stories.

But when you want the more, when you keep your eyes fixed on that peak instead of the ground underneath your feet, it feels really hard to be in the story. To not know what the next chapter holds. To look back on a year and see that you have changed, fundamentally, but your external life measures conventional metrics. To have climbed peaks that nobody saw.

My question, then, as we are halfway through the last month of the year, dear readers: how do you explain the peaks you climbed when the world measures only a few landscapes? How

(Just a shout into the void. I would appreciate your comments and thoughts). Thank you for being with me on this journey.