Words

When I was in "Cours Elementaire 1" (that would be the French equivalent to 2nd grade) my teacher told my grand mother: "Aurore is going to be a writer one day".

I have always had it easy with words. I remember that in "Cours Moyen 2" (this time - equivalent to 5th grade) my mom had to come to school to assure my teacher that I had written my composition by myself.
He had failed me because it was supposedly too elaborate for a 10 year-old.

So one bright and shiny day during recess my outraged mom stopped by school with my 3 month-old baby brother to defend her wronged daughter.
To make it all good - she had brought some sugared almonds from the christening that had occurred two weeks before...
Later I told her it was a form of bribe.
She didn't really care. Neither did I.
......................................................

Writing was just a logic outlet for me. I had learned my alphabet around 2 and a half, started reading my first books around 4 and never really stopped since. All these words had to go somewhere!
So thank God for compositions, papers and the rest. They gave me an excuse to let them go, flow, roll without thinking too much about it.

When it was time for me to decide what I wanted to do with my life - well, the first time at least, right at the end of high school - I knew that I wanted to go on. Reading. Writing. Reading about writing, and writing about my readings.
That seemed so obvious.
But the little voice of reason buried not that deep inside of me told me that I couldn't do that. It was not a job. Not a decent way to live my life. And so freaking useless. That was what everyone was saying so it had to be somewhat true. Right?
So I chose one prestigious path. Political Science- the leading school in France.

But something went wrong. I was successful - but unhappy. I was away from home, my friends and my new found boyfriend but first and foremost, away from my beloved words. Economics and constitutional law might be fascinating on their own rights - there was still something missing.
I will remember the last straw all my life.
We were all sitting in a small, over-heated room. We had all failed our last assignment - a substantial paper. I can't recall what I was supposed to be about. But in the middle of his diatribe our teacher suddenly said: "Guys, you think too much. You have to stop thinking. Because you are not here to learn how to think. You are here to learn how to apply commands".

Woo, woo, wooo...what?!?!?!?
I was 20, full of ideals and that just sounded.....wrong. SO wrong. I felt a wave of revolt surge over me. Romantic heroes anyone?!?!?
I decided right there and then to quit, and to go back to school to study literature.
That's exactly what I did, without looking back.

And here I am - 33 now, and still looking for the light. I studied literature ad nauseam, I wrote, published articles, read hundreds of books and mainly enjoyed it. Bathing in others' words will always be bliss. There is hardly anything better in life for me. Books are my treasures, my best friends and my life-time companions.
But writing has eluded me. On the verge of moving away from my path once again, I wonder. What is it with me and words? Why do I love them so much and yet cannot really make them mine? What am I missing? How do THEY do it?

This time it IS hard to move on. Because this time I am giving up what used to be such an important part of me, what I believed such co-substantial of me. What I believed IN.
But I like being alone with my words, and that's I came to realize after years of sharing them with people who were waiting for something I was not ready to give them. Leaving the academia doesn't mean abandoning my realm.

And that's comforting.