the in-between identity

I picked the name ‘Venturing Online’ as a way to be tongue in cheek about my infrequent visits, but I’m ashamed to say that I’m honestly constantly online. I just speak online less and less. Some of that comes from the fact that the discourses and comments and general attitude of the internet leaves me perpetually vexed. Another part comes from the fact that I don’t really feel secure in anything I have to say.

I used to identify strongly as a writer. And by ‘used to’ I mean as recently as two weeks ago. That stretch was going for about a month, and before that I had a solid two, maybe three years of identifying as a writer. And then in high school, that was my identity.

Basically, I identify as a writer anytime I have a story that I am writing. A fictional story. During fiction writing, I get so many ideas, and I feel like words pour out of me, and I think that every thought I have is worth writing down. But then I go through these transitions where I stop thinking about writing, stop having anything to write, and that’s because everything else is becoming…

For a while I thought that I had simply become too busy to write, during those stretches of writer’s block. I used to attribute those stretches of writers block with college and then with starting a job as a teacher. Then I looked at them more closely and noticed that they tended to align with some traumatic life event that I don’t feel like going into details here. But what I will say is this: It’s really strange to feel the world slipping away from you. It’s also weird to wonder if you are grieving, or if grieving is a convenient excuse.

I’ve noticed there’s a type of story I write when I genuinely want to write, and a type of story I try to write when I want to be a writer. Occasionally I try to write the latter, and sometimes even make progress with it. But I know it’s not the writing I want to be doing because sitting down to write for it feels like clocking into a job that I hate. I spent 2020-2023 perfecting a fictional duology series. The most recent projects I got into were horror fanfictions (surprisingly I’m not embarrassed to admit this) and it reminded me of what it feels like for writing to be your oxygen.

I like writing about childhood under threat, where childhood is precarious, invaded or else weaponized. I like writing about captivity and psychological control, where horror is not only external but relational. I like writing about survival and escape, and the aftermath of trauma. I like exploring the question of how someone grows from a history of trauma, and who a person really was when their childhood was stolen. I like writing about identity formed under distortion, and power imbalances, and corrupted mentorship and stolen innocence. I think I like writing about survival as transformation. Also, I have a tendency to write downer endings.

I don’t like writing directly about myself, my childhood, my teenage years, directly about my mother, my family, my family history, or directly about what it’s like to be a woman who doesn’t quite know what she’s doing with her life.

I’ve been liking my life a lot more since I moved to Colorado. I go on adventures, I see my friends daily, I took up dancing, and I still play piano. The writing part though, it can be hard to fit into what I’m doing. I tried being a teacher and I taught middle school English for two years at a small school with a big community. I loved the kids there but I learned I can’t teach and feel light in my body and clear in my mind.

Now I’m back to not identifying as a teacher (sure, I tutor and I teach beginners piano, but it doesn’t feel the same.) I sometimes try to look at my current life (freelancing and nannying and tutoring the arts) as chic and elegant, but then I start wondering how much of a nightmare taxes are going to be, and what even is my retirement fund. Planning that far ahead seems incomprehensible.

The other identity I saw (see?) myself growing into was (is?) being a mother. Since I was old enough to play with dolls, I wanted to be a mother. It’s got something to do with wanting to nurture, wanting to protect, wanting to have someone that is my responsibility.

Recently one of my middle school students from last year died, less than a year after being diagnosed with cancer. It was the first funeral I went to for a child. There was a repeated refrain that they were in a better place but no one took comfort in that. At the grave everyone was quiet and somber. One student started crying and once they did, they couldn’t stop. I held them, feeling inwardly and urgently that it was absolutely necessary, my only purpose, to stay there and hold them.

When I write about childhood under threat, and about corrupted innocence, I always use external threats. I never write about cancer and other illnesses that creep inside and steal you from within.

I went to the school again for a few events afterwards, wanting to be some type of support. When I was there the kids asked me to be their English teacher again. It was both warming to hear and complicating: I’ve basically put behind me the idea that I’ll ever be a school teacher again, but in so many ways that is what I want. When I lost writing, I told myself it was fine because my identity was a teacher.

I guess this is all bringing me to a question I’ve been struggling with:

If my identity only feels real when I’m producing something (a novel, a classroom, a stable career), then who am I in the in-between?