When I was thirteen I was a section editor for my middle school's yearbook. It was easy work, and I'm pretty sure the only reason I got it was because I had been with the section for the longest. Regardless, I put my all into that section. I was punctual and timely with my pages and picked up any extra slack from my section staffers. I went to most of the home games, always trying to get better pictures to replace the already decent pictures we had. One day when a lady from the company that did the publishing stopped by to visit, she was so impressed with how my pages were (for my age, or course) that she gave me a key chain that had a highlighter on one side and a pen on the other. She told me how great of a job I was doing and that I had a talent for photos and the design program. I was ecstatic, and to be honest, my ego did inflate just a little bit because of that. I kept that key chain for years, long after I lost the caps and the ink dried up. If I went sifting through my junk drawer in my room I might even still find it there.
Typing it out and reading back over, it sounds stupid. It is stupid, I know that. But to pre-teen me, it was more than a junky key chain from a stranger. To me, it was a symbol. It was proof that I was good at something. Maybe I was a B student and a B soccer player, but a professional, strange adult thought that I had a talent for something they thought was important and that stuck something in me. Even thought I didn't see myself as smart or pretty somebody saw worth in me. As a middle child of four and the quiet and bland kid in my school, the validation that I had a place was welcomed and appreciated.
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Now as I'm sitting on my living room floor typing this, I'm wishing I had that key chain now—or at least the feeling it gave me. I'm at the point in my life where there is a definite fork in my road; I can take a chance and do what I would love to or I can continue down the clearer path laid in front of me. I should tell you that I've been hanging out at this fork for a couple of weeks now, continually saying that I'm going take a risk but then...nothing. But I always have an excuse for my inaction. Sometimes they're valid excuses and other times it's just the echo of my mother telling me it was okay that I didn't have as good of grades as my siblings because I was good at "other things." She meant it as encouraging, but in the end, it became a crutch. Why should I try if I'm better at these "other things?" What if I take a risk and find out that I just can't do it?
But, what if I can?
I tried explaining to my boyfriend why I couldn't bring myself to take a risk and with every excuse, he has a rebuttal. After awhile he even has a tiny voice in the back of my head saying: "Yeah...yeah! What if I can?"
So now, I find myself more focused on the crossroads. I'm reaching desperately for that feeling the key chain gave me and wondering if it would still have the same effect on me if I had it now. But it's in this moment of me putting my thoughts and fears down to words that I realize I don't need that key chain. Maybe I did once, but now my new key chain is the little text messages my boyfriend sends me throughout the day. Now, my key chain is my parents and grandparents watching the new show I work on even though I'm not on air. I don't need that office supply hybrid because I recognize that people do believe in me, just like that stranger said she did almost ten years ago. All that's left is for me to believe in me. That, dear strangers on the Internet, is something I need to work on and it won't just come to me with the snap of my fingers.
So now I take a deep breath; I grab my purse and take those first uncertain steps down the second path.
I might be without my special key chain but I'm far from alone.
