I've long thought that the creative gene skipped a generation in my family, especially considering that my family was always a bit traditionalist. My mother did much of the cleaning and child-rearing while I was growing up, but her and my dad shared the job of cooking. They both have their specialties, but you wouldn't know it from the burned frozen pizzas and hot dog bun garlic bread they've prepared over the years.
Just because I sometimes cook like that today doesn't mean I can't cook otherwise; a sentiment I know my parents would echo. I dream of the day when I can move out of these shitty dorms and have a steady job, and with the power of my own money (and also my own goddamn stove), I hope I can make art.
Why is there no lifestyle short of homemaking that allows a person to cook from scratch? It infuriates me to no end that with many foods, I can't even step away from them to check my email before I come back to find my skillet smoking. Here is where the similarities with my writing start.
The expectations of our society drain me-- on top of my existing depression-- and I find myself barely able to string words together for long enough to make a difference. Of course, this spirals out of my control, where I'm frustrated about how little I do in hopelessness-inducing ways.
I need my books again, like I need access to those good ingredients again, for art can't happen without materials. I've grown so disillusioned with the books I read when I was young, now that my mind is more developed and my eyes were forced open to the world. There can truly be no living heroes to a writer, for the same reason I cook from scratch whenever possible. The veneer of age protects me from the horrible aftertaste of both canned soup and JK. Rowling's transphobia.
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