Back in high school, I remember arguing with my sister-in-law about whether or not I was going to attend college. I told her over and over again that college was not for me. I felt too ambitious, I wanted to travel the world and see things I wouldn’t in my hometown. I wanted to run away and write about all the things I would see. There was also a part of me that just felt too stupid. As I told her that, she said that anyone can go to college. I didn’t really believe her.
I left that conversation not feeling any better about my (then) decision. I was not going to go to college, and if I were to, it would definitely not be in my hometown. Not that the university in my hometown was not and is not a very good one, it just felt sticky. Like my life would be stuck in place.
And then, it was. My life was literally stuck in place as the pandemic took over. Now, this is not going to be just another story about Covid-19, it is just important for this aspect of the story, so stay with me here. The world got shut down and I was stuck in my basement room of my parent’s house. The world I needed to see, the things I needed to do, the people I wanted to meet, they were not only out of reach but simply felt nonexistent.
So, I started this blog. Amid the pandemic, I knew I needed to keep writing and have a place to share it. In those months, I flourished in my creative space. My walls filled up more and more and more with drawings and paintings and quotes. This room became my oasis. I had journals splitting at the seams, poetry spilled out of me. I had this blog that I now get to look back on, seeing a beautiful past version of myself. I was depressed, but I was creative.
It came to the point in the spring where I could either stay out of school or agree to a college. I sat in my room, day after day, not traveling, not seeing friends, not really living outside of the creative space I created, and I had no clue when the world would open up again.
I remembered something a teacher from my high school told me. A strict teacher, I had always thought he didn’t like me. Until one day, as I sat in his class the emotions and anxiety of the future got to me and I started crying. He knelt next to me and told me all about his life. All the different roads he had gone down. All of the different crushed dreams, and all the ones that succeeded. He told me that, “everything will happen the way it is supposed to.”
I agreed to the university in my home town.
That Fall I attended, all online of course.
I knew I loved writing, but it seemed unrealistic as a degree, so I went into school mostly undecided on what my major would be. I figured it would probably be psychology because I want to help people, that is what my writing is for anyway. It is to help me, but also allows people a place to relate. But, even though I thought my degree would go in a totally different direction, I took an Introduction to Creative Writing class my first semester since it would count for my generals.
I loved it. It was nothing like my creative writing classes in high school. The teacher really seemed like they wanted to be there and wanted to influence us, even through the screen. Even in this beginner class, I learned so much about writing creatively and improved my writing.
Toward the end of the semester, I turned in an assignment, one of our last assignments. It was supposed to be a non-fiction piece and I was having a really hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to write about, even though I love writing non-fiction. The day the assignment was due came and I went to work, hoping I would be able to create something once I got home. I was at work when the emotion and the idea hit me, so I typed out the ideas in the notes app on my phone and just waited to go home.
I got home just a couple of hours before the assignment was due and the writing spilt out of me. I cried and laughed while writing this piece. This moment felt like pure writing bliss, one of the reasons I love writing so much. I turned it in with not much time to spare, slightly worried, but also not.
A couple of days passed before it got graded. Not only did the professor give me a perfect grade, but he also left a lengthy video about how much he loved the piece. He told me that if I kept up writing then I would be a published author one day.
I changed my major to creative writing.
I fell in love with school. I fell in love with learning more about writing and art. I fell in love with the professors and students who all supported each other and our love for the craft. I kept writing and kept improving my writing. A couple of semesters into school I decided I wanted a place for all of the art and progress I had made throughout college, so I started writing a book.
I gathered up all of my poetry and sifted through it, deciding on what I wanted and didn’t want in this book. I kept writing and kept creating art. I thought and thought and thought about what the book’s main purpose would be and the title that this all would all fall under. Then it hit me.
Aimless.
When I told my mom this idea for the title she told me that aimless is a sad word. It is a word about feeling lost and directionless. She looked up the definition as proof for her argument, showing me that aimless means, “without purpose.” She told me how depressing that is. With that in mind, I kept thinking. I could never get off of Aimless, it just kept coming back to me. Again, again, again. Aimless, aimless, aimless.
I realized that being aimless meant more to me than a lack of purpose, but it meant that you are giving life the opportunity to make purpose out of you. Life is often so focused on set timelines and disappointment that comes from expectations. When in reality, when you are open and actively working towards goals, things will, as my high school teacher told me, “happen the way it is supposed to.”
I also did not want a specific purpose for the poetry that would be in the book. I wanted them to explore different topics and feelings. A rain of emotions instead of a little umbrella of a topic.
I kept working full time, going to school full time, and kept writing my book.
In the summer of 2023, my first book was published. Aimless: A poetry collection. It is perfect in the way that it is not, as every permanent thing is. Like the way my thin tattoos have slowly bled over the years. The way pages age yellow. But, there is really nothing I would change about it. It encaptures everything from those years of writing that I shoved between the green covers. There is a typo from the poem that I decided to include at the very last moment, literally right before production. A poem I included because I met a stranger that reminded me how many people there are to meet and how much connection there can be between you and people you do not know. It feels more special than is wrong, in a way.
After I published Aimless I knew I had just one semester left of school. I wanted to learn as much as possible this last semester, savoring every moment of it. I thought of that professor from my first semester of college and how I never got to be in another class of his, the stars did not align for that. I reached out to him and asked if we could do a directed reading class together, which would just be a one-on-one learning environment.
He agreed.
Every other Tuesday we met. We read poetry books together and I shared multiple poems every time. He would give me amazing feedback on each, all of the negative and all of the positive. He reminded me of poetry terms and practices that had slipped from my brain. He taught me new ones that I had never learned. I was taught through the greatest poets in the country, reading their work and dissecting it, figuring out exactly why it works.
The semester was over quicker than I ever imagined. I learned so much that semester, from all of my classes. In the last class with that professor, I gave him my book, the book that he manifested three years before, and he gave me one of his in return.
Then I was walking across the stage, hugging all the professors who made such a huge impact on my college experience, walking alongside students I also learned so much from. In the blink of an eye, I was graduating college when it felt like I had just been arguing with my sister-in-law about not wanting to attend. I was graduating college, tears in my eyes because I could not imagine if I had never had this experience. I was graduating college, knowing that I was going to be moving away from my hometown shortly after. I was graduating college with a published book.
This is not to say that college is for everyone. This is to say that sometimes you need to allow life to take you exactly where you need to go. Sometimes you need to let things happen because they are supposed to.
Sometimes you need to be aimless.
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