Like most kids, I wanted a dog. So I asked for one every christmas, hoping Santa would surprise me with the cutest little puppy. And like most kids, I was very disappointed when every year Santa just gave me a toy puppy instead of a real one. But unlike most kids, who eventually accept defeat, I decided to make it happen.
So at 11 years old, I went online and bought one. Not just any puppy, it was the cutest one you could imagine. Very few people in my life know this, but yes, I stole money from my parents, bought a puppy online, and met a man in a van in the parking lot of my town’s cinema.
From that moment on, my parents were convinced I was going to become a criminal. And just to be clear: buying a puppy online at 11 is not a good idea. If there’s any kid reading this, don’t do this at home.
I’ve been ashamed of this my whole life. It felt like proof that there was something slightly unhinged about me. But recently, I started looking at it differently. I mean, I wanted something and I did everything in my power to get it. And if that’s not the mind of a winner, I don’t really know what it is. I’ve genuinely considered adding it to my resume. Something like: wanted a dog, stole money, and met a random man in a van until I got it. Or maybe: she puts her goals above everything else, works just fine.
I think that day changed me. It was the beginning of something that is still growing. After this incident, there were two quotes that stayed with me forever. The first one from my biological (but not truly) father:
What did I do wrong for you to do this?
At the time, I said nothing. I had the bravery of an 11-year-old who just bought a dog off the internet, but not the emotional maturity to answer that question.
Now I probably have both. But even now, I don’t think I’d answer it. Some questions are too big, and one lifetime doesn’t feel like enough time to answer.
The second one from my (real father) my grandfather:
You are meant for great things.
The best compliments are often the heaviest ones to carry. I never knew if this one was a belief or an obligation. Statements are risky.
Especially when you’re young. If you don’t build the right foundations when you’re young, it’s very easy to fall apart as an adult.
So the worst thing my grandpa did was tell me I was meant for something special.
And the worst thing I did was believe him.
Since this moment, I’ve had this constant gut feeling that I could not afford to settle. I wonder if I didn’t develop this ambition, maybe I could belong to an ordinary life. Live a calm and fulfilling life. So I developed the fear that it would be impossible for me to feel at home in any life that wasn’t extraordinary. Because I bought a dog online when I was 11 years old and I set a bar. So now I carry the belief of me being able to always create a way to get what I want. And that belief made the word enough impossible. The thing is I wasn’t even chasing something great. I was just trying to deserve it.
I’m twenty-six, and I’ve had five jobs. And I’ve been miserable in every single one of them. Not because they weren’t good enough. The last one was actually my dream job; working as a fashion photographer. But because I was building something for someone else instead of creating my own. So everything went down to having to decide between: stability with frustration, or instability with accomplishment.
So one morning, I was feeling miserable because I had a good (but not great) job, and I had this whisper in my head. So I did the same thing I did when I was 11 years old. I asked myself three questions:
What do I want in life?
What 11-year-old Maria answered with a dog, 25-year-old Maria answered with being a writer.
What do you need to achieve it?
What 11-year-old Maria answered with money, a computer, and no sense of right and wrong, 25-year-old Maria answered with quitting this job and starting writing.
Do you want it enough to assume the consequences? And both 11-year-old Maria and 25-year-old Maria answered the same thing this time: YES.
I knew it was writing. The great thing. In writing, I find a place to relive the parts of life I love. I don’t see them in my present, so I write to make room for them, to keep them with me. That’s my way of messing with time. I am a dangerous mix of nostalgia and love. So I write them with the love and knowledge of someone who has lived them, and I read them with the longing and innocence of a spectator.
The bad things are written from a deeper place. From this huge need. The need to shape my fears, my wounds and my abusers into words, so they no longer live only inside me but also on the page.
I am writing this now knowing why I’ve been feeling so uncomfortable in every life I’ve tried to wear. They weren’t for me. I have always had this feeling that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I thought it was my grandfather’s voice torturing me, but I think it was my writing waiting for me around the corner, waiting for me to turn to it so I could face it. And now I have. And it has seen me back.
I love people and things that arrive in your present and make sense of your past. Things that make every step, every fall, every time you thought you were wrong feel, somehow, like they belonged to something. Because now you are happy, and you think: maybe everything I’ve done has brought me here, and maybe that is enough.
The whisper I heard when I was a waitress was the same one I heard as a fashion photographer: you shouldn’t be here.
And I don’t know if that voice was my grandfather or my writing begging me to get to it. Or maybe both. The thing is, that whisper is gone. I no longer hear it in the morning or at night.
(Maybe the great thing was never something to create, but something to recognize).
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This essay goes to everyone who was called a gifted child. I am truly sorry you had to face anxiety as adults. We are not perfect, and that’s okay, because enough is enough <3
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