Bildungsroman by Ben Hutton
Six thousand four hundred and seventy days have passed me by.
In those tens of thousands of hours, above all else, I’ve learned hunger.
Hunger to improve, hunger to hone, hunger to change.
Second greatest of these desires is the yearning for a better environment.
One that can accommodate the author I would like to be.
That pining for improvement has been at the front of my mind.
As a result of this hunger, I have mastered the art of the self-critique.
The more I hear about the world outside of Virginia, the more discontent I am with my role in it.
I would like to say that I’m a creative person, but I’m not confident in that accurately defining who I am.
Great authors and sculptors are shameless and unapologetic with their art.
I could not distance myself from my pieces any further.
Some of this could be because of the unfortunate muses that I have relied on.
Taboos and fears have been my subject matter. These are by their nature, difficult to talk about openly.
There have been few consistent pleasures in my youth. The only constants that have stuck with me are the glaring inconsistencies.
Contradictory feelings, counterintuitive logic, two faced people, all of these frustrate me to no end.
I cannot help but write what I feel passionately about, and for the past year I have been haunted by petrifying anxiety over adulthood.
Soon, I won’t have the safety net of having my work be viewed with the forgiving lens of teenage writing.
I have been kept up at night endlessly wondering if my writing will be adequate when I’m older.
This change and all of its ramifications are horrifying but it could not be more freeing.
My body of work, as hideous and unrefined as it can be, has had plenty of material to go off of.
Lonely hills and empty towns have been my backdrop.
Smyth county is deep in an endless sleep. There is no life to be found here.
This is difficult to live with, but it gives me some incredibly passionate feelings.
I’m confident that I’ll never lose these melancholy thoughts.
I love and hate Virginia.
Outside of Kentucky I have never had the privilege of meeting another writer.
This is my own fault though. I seldom go out of my way to express this part of myself.
The further along I get in life the more regrets I gain.
I will have no idea what options are available to me right now until they’re far behind me.
The jaws of adulthood lie just a few miles ahead of me. A year ago I thought that as they grew closer I would be more at peace but I've only become more panicked.
Missed opportunities are piling up beneath my feet.
I should have joined swim, I wish I had paid more attention in eighth grade, I needed to talk to this person before now, I wish I should have. Why didn’t I?
Even with the idea that I’ll regret choices a year from now I can’t help myself from being shortsighted.
Even with this burning panic pulling me in dozens of directions I can’t motivate myself to do anything.
I look in every direction for a solution to adulthood.
I cannot find anything to cling onto except for my art, it will have to do.
I will follow it into the last months of my adolescence.
Only one hundred and six days are left.
There is still unfinished business.
There are still more writers to meet.
There is still time.
Ben Hutton is a 17-year-old from Chilhowie, Virginia. He has a few interests and is trying to figure out which one to dedicate himself to. Currently his is considering 3D modeling, but he’s reconsidering writing.