Who am I? Lately, this has become a very difficult question for me to answer to. I am…a somebody. I definitely am a somebody, this I know for certain. I am an individual among 6 billion other individuals on this planet Earth. I am a daughter, a sister, a grandchild, a cousin, a friend. I am a stranger to someone and I might even be an enemy for someone. I am a person with a first name and a surname. I am a person with a working brain and an open mind. But what is behind all of this? That is the question, at least for me. I don’t know…
My future got a roundhouse kick with the results of my exams and it is still trying to get back on track but it is still dizzy and stands still until the twirling stops. This “standing still” becomes more and more unbearable to me with every passing day on which I don’t get certitude. The waiting made me doubt myself. Sure, the whole exam-situation is my own fault and I admit it 100%. Now, there is a voice in the back of my head, nagging me with the question “and now?”. I am sorry voice, but I don’t have the answer…yet.
I am a person split in to two, if you want so, like Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger. I have a passion for everything that concerns the art of writing I love it. On the other hand, I am comfortable with the idea of being a lawyer someday; best case would be a Human Rights lawyer. I was known for being ‘the writing girl’ or ‘the language girl’ but against everyone’s believe I studied law. I need to admit that I like it. I never really admitted it to myself or to someone around me. I had my pokerface of enthusiasm, which I put on every time someone asked me about my law studies. In reality, I still doubted every step I made into a law class. The studies being in French and even if you are just a poor 1st year, they somehow expect you to know certain things already, if possible by heart. It just isn’t the way I learn something. I tried to keep up with the work they gave us. I did work hard, spend several hours on writing their commentaries and dissertations and what else they had and all I ever got was a soft but definite red stroke of a red pen all over my work and maybe a sympathetic smile. I tried…I did not give my best, but I tried, that is all I can say.
The dream, of course, would be to become an author or a writer whose work is that much appreciated that it is sufficient to live on that budget. The chances that this will ever happen to someone here in my homeland are that small that a statistic wasn’t even worth making. In a country, where money is all that counts, the arts have no place. A combination of author/writer and lawyer would be the perfect match, but I need to decide which studies to do and law it is. The choice taken away from me now is painful. I am being pushed in one direction although I know that the deprived one is the right one and it causes me pain. It made me get such a low self-esteem and permanently doubt myself these last days. I am still not happy, I just gained a glimpse of hope, but until then, I still have to wait. Waiting… and quitting to question every move I make.
