..On Writing..
What has writing meant to me?
I have always found a refuge in words. The simple act of putting pen to paper, and now fingertips to iPhone, has given me great solace throughout my life. As a child when I would get into trouble, screams and slammed doors would muddle my voice. I constantly felt misunderstood. And although volume was never an issue, substance and constructive communication were. I found a voice in writing. My mom has since collected the countless letters that I taped on her door. We laugh about it now, but there is no doubt that my love of words was born between those four yellow walls. Unfortunately, I lost that connection throughout academia. At one point in college, I was writing forty pages worth of papers a week. Thesis' and arguments were something I could form in my sleep. It all became stale and meaningless. Professors would criticize my quiet boycott of institutionalized word vomit. And I would be left discouraged and frustrated. An advisor once told me that I wrote with more color than any other student he had ever met. I remember exactly how that compliment had buzzed my ears and the tops of my cheeks. I I also remember more poignantly, I might add, the profound sadness that followed after he proceeded to tell me that's not what we're looking for. Regardless of the conflicting feedback, I lost my way from my heart, my words and my story. It took a messy break up, and a return to the cuckoo's nest to find it again. And a little over a year ago, I found myself joining an online writing course and sharing my work publicly for the very first time. And today, I can say without any hesitation that I want to be a writer. I want to write poems and books in hopes that if even one person can feel my words or relate to my story then I have succeeded far more than I could have ever imagined.
Words are mine. What is yours? Don't ever cage your spirit. For all that I know is that a soul cannot be contained.