7.10 | Remember Permission Slips?
What to expect from this substack, written from the kitchen counter of my childhood home.
Monday, July 10, 2023
Remember permission slips? Those slim rectangles of brightly-colored paper — teal, pink, goldenrod — that we’d excitedly stuff into our folders (or raw-dog into backpacks) to bring home to our parents so they could approve our attendance for an upcoming elementary school field trip? Brandish each slip with a flourish, secure a quick signature from an overwhelmed parent, and you’d be bouncing on a faux-leather bus seat on your way to the planetarium, a colonial heritage site, a whaling museum, the glue factory.
Permission slips. At some point in life, you stop needing them. No cash or check stuffed into an envelope for an overnight trip (you’ll have to pay for that on your own). No parent/guardian signature required to get on a bus or a plane and go somewhere. You’re just…permitted?
Why, then, has it felt like I still need one? To book a spontaneous trip. To move to a new city. To ask for extra dressing on the side. To chop off my hair. To request that an Uber driver turns up the AC. To end relationships or start new ones. To plan this long-anticipated but suddenly looming Eat Pray Love journey I’m set to embark on.
I’m 27, and I feel like I’m still waiting to be handed a slip of paper that tells me it’s OK. It’s OK to proceed. It’s OK for people to disapprove. My fear is a red light I’ve been stopped at for so long that I’ve put my car into park. It’s felt like the light would never turn green.
Until now. I’m ten days out from a six-month journey I’ll be spending doing everything I’m most afraid of: Trusting myself. Bothering people. Getting lost. Writing things might people actually read. And, yes, there will be a big haircut along the way.
I’m leaving my home and my job in New York City to travel around Europe for my Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, an award I received upon my graduation from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism as one of the top four students in my class just over a year ago. It’s essentially a reporting stipend — money that funds independent, international journalism on a significant issue — endowed by Joseph Pulitzer himself, aimed at giving budding journalists the opportunity to travel, report and study abroad. (A fifth award goes to a top graduate wishing to specialize in drama, music, literary, film or television criticism.)
I’m using the fellowship as an opportunity to hit pause on my life in New York and establish myself as a freelance journalist — something I’ve shirked away from for years, listening to the many excuses fired off from my impostor syndrome. I need money, I’d tell myself. Stability. Structure. Security. I won’t find success.
I might hate it. I honestly kind of even hope I do, so I can return to a wonderful job and paycheck in corporate America and sleep soundly at night with the knowledge that I did the thing. But, as they say, I won’t know until I try. And trying and failing is better than not trying at all. (Try telling that to my perfectionism.)
Moving forward, I’ll be sharing words here daily. Or trying to. I’ll mostly be documenting the thoughts and feelings that arise while I’m on this adventure. Therein lies the name of this Substack: It’ll serve as a series of permission slips I’ll return to in moments of fear or uncertainty, a daily reminder that my signature is the only one I need.
My posts may be terrible, boring, silly and/or completely irrelevant to you, my work or my travels. But I promise I’ll always aim to entertain.
If you’re still reading — thank you.
More tomorrow.
C.W.*
*This is what I used to envision would be my pen name, when I was an angsty middle schooler poring over The Twilight Saga. Chloe Willow. Sans Shakin. She was going to become a novelist. Let’s dedicate this first post to her.
Love these so much already. You’re incredible, C.W.!
Can’t wait to follow along!