Plan B.

Wrongly, I've always been one of those all-my-eggs-in-one-basket kinda person. I throw every inch of myself into something if it's what I really want, in the same way I won't make the slightest bit of effort if my heart isn't in it. All my choices are based on what I really want, but there's always a little voice in the back of my head whispering something about a Plan B, a second choice, a back-up. 

"Or you could always go into teaching?" I hear one of my relatives say when I tell them for the millionth time (vaguely) that I want to write when they ask about my career prospects and "what are you really going to do with a Literature degree?" My face expression goes blank. I don't even have enough self-restraint to hold the bored, unimpressed grimace back. It's too close to home. My face scrumples as if someone has just spat on the pavement in front of me, as I wonder how I can explain to the people who I love that the only thing I will ever consider doing and happily, is writing. It's unrealistic, ambitious, dreamy, naive, whatever. I've heard it all. It's arty, risky, "a tricky field to get your name known in" it's "not great money" and "not a steady wage" and "you'll never get a mortgage" and "how will you support yourself on that?" SHUT UP.

How I see it is this; I'm not choosing, even unwillingly, to get myself into 30 grand's worth of debt (bearing in mind I'm a normal person from a normal working-class background) and I can't even envisage how much money that actually is.. To then settle for something that doesn't make me happy. Something that makes my blood race and my veins pulse and my brain explode in ecstasy. It's what I want. Simple as. Back up plans maybe aren't for me.