My Second Life

“On a deux vies et la deuxième commence le jour ou l'on se rend compte qu'on n'en a qu'une.”
―Confucius, Sur Le Destin

Hello,

Is that the way you introduce yourself when you start a blog? Well it’s the only way I know how to start one and since this is my first blog and my first post any reader should expect mistakes. I suppose the politest thing to do is to introduce myself, my name is Amy-Alison. I’m in my mid-twenties and I live in this little country called England, Yorkshire to be a little bit more specific (that’s nowhere near London if you’re from somewhere more exotic than the British Isles so I don’t sound like Keira Knightley or Kate Moss).

I suppose I should really explain why I’ve started this blog, although I will be honest I’m not completely sure myself why I’ve started to write my thoughts, feelings and ideas on the internet in the hope of connecting with other likeminded people via the cybersphere.

“If you wish to be a writer, write.”
—Epictetus

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a very, very long time but have never had the courage to even begin to take the steps to make this dream a reality. This blog is the beginning of this dream and the realisation that I need to do something about this came about quite suddenly not that many months ago. I’d started another new job and when one of my new colleagues asked me why I had taken this job I replied ‘because I can’t really do my dream job’. This honesty may have been a little too forward for my second day but I hadn’t managed to filter the truth and up until that moment I didn’t realise that this was the truth either, but the subconscious never lies. 

I’ve read books since before I was born when my mum used to tell me that I’d start kicking if she watched television but would settle if she read Jane Austen aloud. I read 1984 at 11 and became paranoid soon after (an unfortunate quality that has stuck with me throughout my life...thanks Mr Orwell); I read Pride and Prejudice at 14 and yearned for Mr Darcy rather than Luke in my science class who ogled at my breasts for the entire forty-five minute lesson (what a charmer). I had an interest in writing for as long as I remember, my dad pointed this out to me the other day reminding me of the stories I used to write when we first got the house computer at 11. Only in the last few years have I realised that this is the thing that makes me happy and makes me excited every single day of my life.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
 —Ernest Hemingway

Despite my love of writing and literature since I was very young, and my recent epiphany that I only ever want to be a writer, it has taken me a long time to put anything in motion. The main reason behind my late development, and I have definitely developed late since most writers know from an early age that they want to be writers, is low confidence. While Mr Fitzgerald, Ms Austen and Mr J. D. Salinger knew they were born to be writers from a tender early age, some of us, me in particular, have known what they have wanted to do also but have never had the stomach to follow it through. I’ve been publicly complaining about wanting to be a writer for over a year (although privately this yearning has lasted for nearly five years) and when the Boyfriend told me to go for it, but when I replied that I wasn’t good enough my boyfriend simply quoted Mr Hemingway and suddenly I didn’t feel as intimidated anymore.

And lastly, the reason I wanted to at least make a start on fulfilling my dream is because I’m a mid-twenties woman in one of the most confusing times to be a woman and a twenty year old. I feel as if I come from a generation that has had the most freedom we’ve had in a very long time yet are restricted by society’s views, the economy and by us. I don’t live in a major city, in fact like a lot of women in the world I live in a small town/village where being slightly different is considered odd and frowned upon.

Now that may sound stupid to some of you but I live in a village where a large majority of the women my age are unemployed, drinks a considerable amount each night, lives only for the weekend, reads gossip magazines, loves Katie Price (Jordan!), everything is fake (tan, nails, eyelashes, hair colour) and their main past time is watching television. I will say right now that I don’t have anything against these women and I truly believe in my mum’s favourite phases ‘each to their own’ and if it doesn’t hurt me then I don’t care how other people choose to spend their lives. Moreover, I don’t mean to generalise but it has been my experiences over the last twenty plus years of living in this town. I am the opposite of everything listed above, although I like a little bit of the fakeness every now and then, but I definitely fell out of place when I walk in my local town and have been mocked quite a bit for not following the latest reality programmes, being in a semi permanent tangoed colour, reading books, listening to music that you won’t find in a nightclub and for not getting plastered every night. I know there are a lot of women out there that are more like me than them and I just want to write about life in England at the moment if you aren’t part of the above category and the challenges and peaks of being a woman in your twenties today. I read a lot of articles written by thirty year old writers in magazine telling me about the struggles I face and while they may have more life experience over me they aren’t my generation. It’s us, me, which face these problems so I feel it’s only right that I write about what we face.

 “We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize that we only have one”
―Confucius

This realisation hit me recently when I read this quote, we don’t get a second chance and if I’m not going to follow my dream now then when will I. 

Today begins my second life.