didn’t give much thought to it, but as I read her note now at 23, I realize just how much of a subconscious impact it had on me. I was a quiet kid that grew up in an environment where my voice didn’t matter. Writing stories and poems became my only outlet and I came to find they were therapeutic in a way. I could release my thoughts and lose myself in the poetry and prose; on those pages I wasn’t scared to be myself. I’d get so consumed in writing that I’d get a callus on my right ring finger that would never go away and even though it looked like a bruise, I saw it as a weird badge of honor. It reminded me that writing was something that nurtured me and gave me a sense of freedom. My writing hit its peak in middle and high school as I found solace and release when some prose or poetry flowed from my pen. Since it was something I loved to do, I started to seriously consider making it my profession. But as the college conversation grew, so did the fear that I wouldn’t make a living being a novelist or poet, which was a painful realization. I turned away from creative writing in my senior year of high school, when I joined my school newspaper and I filled out college applications with the intention to major in journalism.
Over the past five years, my passion for prose and poetry dwindled. The callus on my right finger was long gone. My current writing centers more on structure and following a particular style rather than what’s on my mind. It became more about writing for others than for myself.
passion for these things never truly left me, it was just a matter of reigniting them. I’m a writer in every sense of the word, and I don’t have to confine myself to just one type of writing. Starting my life with creative writing gave me a base and the molding of my voice and journalism gave me the guidance and confidence to put my words out there. I can allow both to exist in my life. I’ve come to see that calling myself a writer shouldn’t automatically mean that it’s a job description but rather a state of being. It’s a state that has not ceased since I was young, rather, its simply transformed and Although I don’t regret grown up with me. choosing journalism, I started to That love never left me and grieve for the little girl who was it will continue to be with me as so happy when she got to write a I get older. Whenever I would poem or a story. think back on Mary’s note and But as I look at my inconsis- her encouragement of me content journal pages from the past tinuing to write stories, I mistook couple of years and a short story it as motivation that I had to be I wrote for a recent class assign- a best-selling author or poet in ment, I realized that I didn’t have order for it to matter. to abandon it in the first place. But reading the note now, I Creative writing made me see it more as a reminder to keep feel most like myself and I can doing something I clearly had a still do it now, even if it isn’t for a strong love for even back then. professional feat. While I don’t plan on writing The actual act of writing princess stories anytime soon, I may be a series of choices, but will no longer hold myself and continuing to identify myself my inner child back from writing as a writer of stories and poetry simply for the love of it. at this point in my life doesn’t have to be a choice. My love and
“... calling myself a writer shouldn’t automatically mean that it’s a job description ...”
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