How Talented is Talented Enough

So, when people ask me “what’s your thing” or “what are you into” my answer is boring. Incredibly so. I say “I write. I’m a writer.”

Only, it usually comes out “I like werdz” with me smiling way too broadly. After the awkward encounter I feel like an excited preschooler gushing about eating paste or something.

I know people who have countless amazing talents. I am not one of those people. I trip over my own feet when I walk. I’ve been known to slap myself silly when trying to get rid of a bug or a spider in my hair. I just put words down and sometimes they come out as a story. That’s it. I’m a one-trick pony.

Once when I was much younger I tried to learn how to crochet. That resulted in several thirty-foot long braided strings scattered around my house. I owned a sewing machine for a short time. It ended up stored in a closet for about five years. I managed to sew one or two things, which is a generous way to describe the swatches of material that I managed to stick together with thread.

Knitting was not successful, either. In elementary school I was sweetly informed by a music teacher that I have a very good voice. For a choir. A big one. I once recorded myself and I have to say that I agree with the teacher.

But in fifth grade I wrote a play about the founding of America that my whole class performed and it went over pretty well. (I didn’t act in it. In ninth grade I was in a drama class and my dynamic teacher told me I couldn’t act like a drunken sailor if I tried. I was playing a drunk sailor in a skit.) That was my thing that entire year.

Words are still my thing. Even if writing is my only thing, I am at peace with it.