A dark room lit only by the glow of the T.V. My family and I sat watching Arrival on a Friday night. The movie is about the power of language and written words. The effect that words can have. A simple ‘ding’ and I have a message. Turning down my brightness so I don’t disrupt my family watching the movie, I see what it says. It is from a not-so-close friend asking if I want to go to her house with some of her friends. Of course I say no. I’m not leaving mid-movie to go hang out with people who don’t care about me and just want the extra person there. After the message is sent I turn my phone on vibrate and continue to watch the movie. Now my phone is blowing up with messages saying that I’m ditching her. That’s not true. Just because I would rather be with my family (loving people), rather than you and your not-so-nice friends, doesn’t make me a bad person. A few hours later and the movie is over (the main character ended up being able to see the future because of the language that she learned).

Now that the movie is over I go to take a shower (I do my best thinking in there). I look at my snapchat story while the water heats up. Videos of people partying and drinking and flirting at this party fill my story. Why would I go to this party? I don’t drink. Listening to music I start to think. I think about how I would rather sit and write or be with my family than at a party. Then I start to think about why. After my shower I type in my phone: “It’s Friday night and alone I sit. But I am not worried, yet comforted by the silence. Silence lets me think, lets me write words on a page that if surrounded by people I wouldn't be able to express. So I sit alone and write what needs to be said, and in the moment that I feel alone I think I will turn what I wrote into something beautiful. I will be something someday. So while you party with people you call friends, I work on myself. Because in two years you’ll no longer care what happened tonight, but I will. Tonight is the night I set out to become something beautiful. Not on the outside. Not something as superficial as that. But someone kind and beautiful on the inside. Someone who turns the broken glass of her past and turns it into a beautiful mosaic. Someone that will mean something to this world. Someone who will create something beautiful to share with the world. A piece of art that will mean something to someone.”

I get dressed and sit in my room writing about people who hurt me, people who make me a better person, poems, creative writing, songs. I write about my family and the people I love who support me. I write all that I can until it’s 2am and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I write until my hand aches and my eyes hurt. Until my heart breaks and mind twists from the words I write. Ringing out all of the big words I can and thinking about the pain I’ve been through. At 2am I take a blurry picture of a page I wrote. Someone from the party is a boy who most of my writing is about, he’s a friend, sort of. I get a message from him asking to read it. When I reply “no” he decides he doesn't want to talk to me ever again. I think it’s because I finally have a part of my life that he doesn’t need to be a part of. I choose to have my writing (a part of myself) over him. I’m not sad about it either, I am not ashamed of wanting to write. Writing is my outlet. My writing is mine.