This Is Why I Write

Ever since I was a child, I enjoyed writing; I even had a diary that I wrote in every day. I would write about all sorts of things, but mostly I would write about the day that I had that day. Often I wrote about simple things. I mostly wrote about what I did that day and how it made me feel, whether I wrote about how mean my mother was for not letting me hang out with my friend that day or how great she was for making me soup and letting me stay home from school when I was sick. Though it may seem silly to some, I strongly believe that this diary helped shaped me into the writer I am today.

To this day, at 23 years old, I still have my diary from my adolescent years. I must admit, some entries are terribly dramatic and embarrassing, but if they are anything, they are honest, they are real, they are playful, raw, and they are innocent. At twelve years old, while my spelling and sentence structure was atrocious, my writing was surprisingly passionate. It was dramatic, but not cynical, it was innocent, but not ignorant, in fact, the lack of experience and harshness of the “real world” was quite lovely.

My passion for writing only grew stronger as I grew taller, although, it didn’t stop at 5’2 like the rest of me. It consumed me, I was more myself when I was reading and writing. I was always the shy girl growing up in school, but on paper, I was loud, on paper I was the girl who got picked first in gym class.

While I wasn’t the biggest fan of high school, I found myself looking forward to my English classes the most. The first teacher I ever really connected with introduced me to books and plays such as, The Kite Runner, The Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders, The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher in the Rye, Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. She genuinely loved teaching; she had undeniable passion and wit about her that made you glad to know her. She taught me a lot about writing, about good books, about stringing words along together in such a way that they sound like poetry.

Writing became a lot less fun for me when I got to college. I found that my teachers expected a lot less heart and a lot more hard facts and research. I enjoy writing so much because it is a way for me to spill my heart out onto paper, but my college professors didn’t want this. I suppose a weakness of mine is that often I write from the heart and personal experience, this makes it hard to separate myself from the research causing my writing to come off as too personal and less factual.

I stopped giving a shit about writing for others and I started to write for myself. I started keeping a journal again. I find whatever it is I’m always looking for in traveling. I find it in a good adventure. I find it in this little patch of sun by the window in my room, plants and gardening, the sound of my parents getting along, I find it in writing too. I am my best self when I am writing.

I want to take the best parts of me and do important things with them.