I recently finished reading John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed, which is a collection of essays of seemingly unrelated topics, yet all are relatable to the human experience, accompanied with a Yelp-style review of the experience. The essay topics range from Canadian geese, to viral meningitis, to the Nathan's hotdog eating contest in Coney Island, to his favorite band, to sunsets, to plagues, and several other random topics in between. As a reader, I walked away entertained and more fully enriched in my knowledge. As a writer, I found myself inspired to write my own review in the style of John Green. Here we go.
New Beginnings
I have always been inspired by starting something new. Hunting for the perfect planner at the start of a new year, cracking open fresh pages of crisp white, selecting the perfect writing utensil to pen the recurring celebrations like birthdays and holidays - it brings me inexplicable satisfaction. Why choose a half-used notebook I already own and have discarded when I could buy a brand new one for a new project?
The start of each school year brings a fresh wave of giddy butterflies and crippling anxiety at the thought of starting all over with a new group of students. Will they like me? Will I be able to reach them? Will they hate the books we read? And yet, the anticipation of starting new that pushes aside the nervousness and fuels me to launch headfirst into that new beginning. There’s something about a fresh start that inspires me to hope. I experience a rush of serotonin as I stand on the precipice of a new horizon.
In the summer of 2021, I was in the midst of one of my worst years I have ever experienced. When the new year began, I had thought that surely the COVID-19 pandemic would be over by now and that life would be able to return to some bout of normalcy. When I turned the calendar to January 1, I truly believed 2021 would be a year to catch up on all I had missed. But when the year started, I entered into a season of extremely poor mental health dealing with my own personal demons from an abusive work environment. Instead of 2021 being a time to catch up on social interaction I’d missed, I used that year to merely survive. I escaped through reading more books than I ever have in my life. I started posting about my reading to strangers on the internet. Somehow it was less painful to communicate with strangers than it was the people closest to me in real life. I expected relief to come when the school year ended, and yet summer school loomed. I found myself stuck in a cycle of the same thing, day after day.
As I sat through seemingly endless summer school hours, I felt myself beginning to spiral. Was this all life would ever be? Doing the same thing, day after day, for the next 35 years until I could retire? As far as I could tell, this is all my life would consist of for the foreseeable future. I could not be content with that. I could feel the depression starting to crash in like waves as I fought to keep my head above the darkness below. Like usual, I had a good cry. Crying for me is a lot like a fresh start. Letting the tears fall, much like rain, helps to wash the cloudy thoughts from my head and help me see clearly. After a good, long cry, I realized that I needed two things to pull myself out of the spiral.
The first thing I needed was something that I could look forward to. I ended up planning a trip for six months later to visit my best friend in Tennessee. The second thing that I needed was something to give me purpose again. I started looking into grad school programs that were not in education. I wanted to pursue something outside of teaching so I could remind myself of who I was before. I ended up enrolling in Bay Path University’s Creative Nonfiction Writing MFA program. I remember in exact detail the conversation I had with my therapist after making these seemingly rash decisions between sessions. The first thing I remember is that she was so proud of me for how I was able to recognize a spiral coming, to logically figure out exactly what I needed, and choosing to move forward to make it happen. The second thing I remember is how proud I was of myself to be able to see the solution so clearly. I have never been somebody who runs away from conflict. I tend to take it head on, and I want to solve the problem rather than let it linger. A new goal was exactly what I needed.
At this point in my MFA program, I am in the midst of a year-long experience in the publishing track. Last semester, I took a course called Intro to Publishing, in which my classmates and I absorbed a ton of information on a broad spectrum within the publishing industry. I learned that I have a strong desire to go into publishing, either focusing on marketing or possibly as a literary agent. And now, as I look forward to this next semester, I am about to start the second half of the course which is Immersion in Publishing. I am fortunate to have been placed in an internship with Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP), a small publishing house based in Washington, DC. I will be working with the SFWP social media manager, as well as two up-and-coming authors in the spotlight for 2023.
What started as a hobby through silly videos on Tiktok over the last three years has now become industry experience. I have been building my own social media platform working with publishers and authors to promote upcoming books. It is gratifying to know I can use something I am passionate about to further serve my purpose. Even though I still struggle with the state of my mental health, that realization feels like a fresh start.
And for that, I give new beginnings four out of five stars.
