“This Is Me”
To be honest, when I first heard what the course “Writing in the Media” was about, I wanted to drop it, pack my bags, and fly back to Finland. The idea of writing for an audience scares me so much that basically the thought of skydiving without a parachute would be less scary. It’s paradoxical really, because I love to write. I’ve always been writing something: throughout my whole life, I’ve always had a story, a journal, a poem and whatnot under process. Emphasis on the word “process”, considering that I’ve probably never finished anything, let alone published anything. Except for handing in essays at school (which this far have all been finished), I’ve never even shown my writings to anyone. And why is all that?
I am so. Freaking. Scared.
The idea of somebody actually reading something that I wrote makes me scared beyond belief. So scared that I don’t really want to finish anything because that directly stops me from publishing anything. It’s funny really, because if someone were to ask me what I would like to do for the rest of my life, I’d probably answer that I want to write. But of course, I would never say it out loud because it’s scary letting people in on the secret. I’d probably give a vague mumbling about working for the EU. Additionally, isn’t it super embarrassing telling people you want to do something in which you could fail tremendously? It’s not? Are you sure? Well, it must be the Finn in me then. That’s one of the downsides of growing up in Finland, really, because you learn to be super embarrassed of everything. Every situation becomes a new chance for self-doubt and shame, or if not that, you can always resort to second-hand embarrassment. I can honestly say that I’ve skipped multiple things just because I was embarrassed of doing them, being scared of what others would think about me. Not that it all could be blamed on the “Finnishness”, but for the most part I’m just a scared Finn in the corner watching life flicker by as I’m trying to catch it with trembling hands.
Now, returning to this moment and to writing this ramble, I keep re-editing text, deleting text, and starting over. At the same time I keep reminding myself that it’s not that serious. I’m trying to remember the moments when I was younger and writing came so naturally because there were no pre-existing standards in my mind that I was trying to achieve. I didn’t care if it was perfect, because the only thing that mattered was the fact that I enjoyed it. Little Ninni just wanted to write, secretly thinking how awesome it would be if one day people were reading something that I created. Somewhere between that Little Ninni and this modern-day-loser that enjoyment got covered under overthinking and fear. That’s why this assignment and the upcoming trials make me shake in my Nikes, but it’s okay, because at the same time this is the first thing in a long time that I’ve been truly this excited about. I’m finally taking the time to write again. And the best part in all of this: I can just say that I have to do all of this for school, erasing the future embarrassment that is, trust me, one hundred percent sure about to follow. Do I want to do this? Totally. Would I have ever done this on my own? Totally not.
So, to sum it all up, I’m verging upon this mission as Finnish, scared, and embarrassed, but more than those, extremely excited. Actually, I think that that’s a nice summary of “me”: completely Finnish, completely scared, completely embarrassed, but also, utterly excited for what’s coming my way.
Edited with thanks to Lauren Seward
Edited with thanks to Elena
