The Observant Writer

The Certified Writer’s Files #9

“Is Amanda even in the room?” - my uncle said.

Can you tell I was a strangely quiet six year old?

I always considered myself an observer, above everything else. My own identity was never something important to me, still isn’t sometimes. I wake up, go to college, freelance, and on the weekends, you can find me singing “Bad Girl” by Madonna while wearing a pink cowboy hat in a bar near you. I’m also the girl hiding under a 18th century portrait because of what my dear friend Jan, from Colombia, calls “Machismo”. Looks like a beautiful word, isn’t. Really isn’t. Either way, I always felt like things were so much more comprehensible if you just observed what was going on and then try to make sense of it on your mind. No one feared you, or hated you, but no one could even tell you were there. No one cared. I was there regardless.

And by 12, i could almost see through people, see through their concerns and struggles. I’ve matured to that point. What Susan Sontag didn’t tell you is that you could get cuckoo enough from only observing the world and its many complexities. Fuck.

As an example, you could grow tired of enduring the boredom and shameless lies of people that just talk way too much without listening, like that one lady at every family wedding that turns every single story told at the table into something about her and about how her family is perfect and her husband is the most perfect, when she knows ( and you know,too) that she’s getting cheated on since the beginning of time. Or you could be the ‘cranky’ and ‘negative one’ that tells your cousin that the blond lady on his instagram is actually trying to sell him a pyramid scheme, not trying to get with him. Ah, society.

And what exactly do you do with all that knowledge and information that you possess about the world and about other people? Yeah, you write about it.

If you feel the same, dear writer, i want to ask you: At what point in your life did you see one of these situations and started to think: “That would be a great story”? Too early? Yeah. Me too.

It was nice being an observer. It was nice to know all these nuances of people, and goddamn, it was nice to write about it. I had a blast. Until I completely forgot I existed. I was nothing but a pair of eyes with a lot of notebooks and pens.

I took all these stories and I incorporated them into my own, making it seem like I was totally an active part of it, as if it was this fantastic thing, when in reality, I was “what’s your name again?”. Making stories on wattpad (don’t ask me for my username… it’s definitely not something related to “twilight”. It’s not.) in my room eating last night’s leftovers was the closest I could get to having one single original experience. I spent half of my life being a passive observer. Shit. I knew very little about myself… I only knew what others knew. Who was i? When I finally made my friends (organically, not friends “for the plot”), I found out I was anything but a quiet person.

I was described as “bubbly and joyful” by my friends when playing the “describe ___ in two words” game in a dusty ass mcdonalds at 2am.

That’s right! I remembered being kicked out of classes in high school because I just wouldn’t shut up, alongside my best friend (hi, sara!!!) . I was never "the quiet one", I just wasn’t making the right connections, having the right bonds. I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live, trapped into the experiences I used to see other people living, especially on social media. It’s not that I wasn’t living “the right way” (what right way? is there a right way?), I just wasn’t living to the life I had on my expectations, and without it, I was purposeless. I simply thought I wasn’t interesting enough, and that I was better a a “news reporter” of pretty much everything that happened to others around me. That’s when I decided to create ‘Certified.’

I did it because I found out that life is a big regency era party, where everyone is dressed in big polyester dresses and wearing glass jewelry pretending it’s all top notch stuff, waiting to be chosen and waiting to be validated and waiting to be someone. In this party, I’m trying to find that wallflower that shines the most, just exploding with experiences to tell, and I just want to walk up to her and say “Did you ever just put water on your shampoo bottle when it was over so that you could wash your hair one more time with it?” and I wanna hear her say yes. That’s my life goal, as an observer and as a person. To find that one real motherfucker. And to have a fucking conversation for once.

Because what if someone very talented and very interesting is out there getting outtalked in a conversation by a finance guy? What if someone out there who was labeled as “quiet” too early actually has a fucking lot to say and wants to tell everyone to fuck off? That’s my purpose in life, to tell you to do it. And to do it with you. There’s place for everyone in this world, and every art is meaningful if you put your heart into it. I want to feel your presence in the room, even if you feel more comfortable on the corners ( I do, too).

You’re interesting. What you write is interesting, so talk about it! It's not that you were never interesting to begin with, it's that some people think that they're 'the shit' and that they're doing everything correctly, and want to tell you how to live your life. They want to teach you about how writing about ‘this’ is boring, but writing about ‘that’ is very, very interesting. There is no such thing!!! Talk about how obsessed you are with polka dots for the summer, talk about your experiences with addiction and getting over it, talk about your “it girls” and how they impact you, talk about anything! Just write it. Writing about it and ripping the band aid off now is so much better than spending a whole life wishing you had done it.

A writer is someone who pays attention to the world, yes, but don't you forget that a writer is many things. The world can start paying attention to the writer instead. You’re always the protagonist of your own life, not just the funny side character that needs a drink or two.

And, as always, final advice: Just let the observers talk. You’ll be so surprised when you hear they know their shit so much better than you do. Just saying. See you next Sundaaaaay.

*If you’re a new friend I just made, here’s me talking about how the ‘Tumblr sad girl era’ shaped me and turned me into, well, a big fucking monster:

Oh, and I’ve been so surprised by seeing some of you finally getting over the pressures of social media, and I’ve been so happy to see you happy to quit something like instagram (if you felt like it was addictive for you).