Writing isn’t what I do. It’s who I am. The words and I have become one. I can tell one from the other. My soul is made of ink, my brain of ideas, and I just give them the space and ability to join and to become something better.






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Reading was my first great love. I read everything I could find. The Magic Tree House series, Junnie B. Jones, Harry Potter, the newspaper, old magazines, science text books. I didn’t understand all of them, but reading those words felt like an escape. An escape from the real world that, as I was just finding out, wasn’t such a friendly place. With these books, I could search Ancient Rome with Jack and Annie. I could head to school with Junnie. I could move past the little boundaries of my grandparents’ backyard to something newer, something greater.

These words started to inspire me. And, naturally, from my love of reading came my love of writing.

The stories I started with were stupid, short, and childish (my favorite being about three cousins who lived with their grandparents and were superheroes), but when I looked at them again while writing this, they made me beam ear to ear. These little characters that I created when I was eight are just as fresh in my mind as they were then. It was like finding an old friend again. It was seeing how much I’ve improved. It was also like holding on to a little piece of my old self.

As a got older, I moved away from these stories. It was like out growing a t-shirt. They didn’t fit what I was trying to say anymore. I had gone from this happy, go-lucky kid to a much darker, more depressed adolescent. My father was in an accident a half a mile from my house. He broke his back, arm and foot. He was in a coma for thirteen days. I honestly thought he was going to die. That, be it a blessing in disguise, put things in perspective. Rather than socializing with the girls of my school, I became shy and introverted. I realized I had nothing in common with these people anymore. They were worried about their hair and what song the Jonas Brothers were going to sing at the Emmy’s. I was worried about the safety and future of my family.

So, I turned to the one thing that was a constant in my life: writing. Poetry had fit like a new t-shirt. Through it, I could freely express all the emotions that I had to keep hidden. I had notebooks upon notebooks filled with it. Some about worry I had for my family. There were a few about some political issues. (I’m one of those annoying teenage activists.) Most were about school though. How lost I felt. How much I felt like I didn’t fit in. How the guys I liked didn’t like me. All the other stuff depressed pre-teens write about. (I guess you guys can't give me points for originality. Whoops.)

I entered four poetry contests during that time. I won three of them. I was proud of myself for once. But I felt like something was missing, so two days before I was set to start seventh grade, I told my mother I was giving up my scholarship and changing schools. God bless my mother, she went along with the idea.

So, of course, I started off my first year in a real middle school as an awkward new kid. As par usual, my writing came with me.

Poetry didn’t fit anymore as I became comfortable in my own skin. I finally knew who I was. I had no need to write little made up stories or depressing poetry. I needed to find out more about myself. I kept a journal for this purpose. Its name was Kyon. It was decorated with pictures, quotes, and poetry. A ribbon that I bought in Salem, Massachusetts was weaved in and out of the metal rings. The inside was filled with my neat scrawl. I have to admit for awhile that notebook was the only thing that kept me sane. Too bad I lost it. I’ll miss it.






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I am not the little girl who opened those books many years ago. I am not the child who wrote those stories five years ago. I’m not to the teen who wrote that poetry three years ago. I’m not even the kid who wrote in that book last year. I’m someone completely different. I will hold a piece of each of those people in my heart forever, but I will continue to change. But writing in whatever form it comes in will be there, too, changing right along with me.