Writing, putting words of thought  to paper or in my case keyboard. the words begin to form into a story. the story that we all hold inside of us. The story of our individual lives. One that makes us who we are, the one that takes our short paragraphs that come together to form a chapter which combine to become a book. In my case this blog.

Why have I chosen to begin a blog you may ask? It started with a vision I had about what I want in my life moving forward, and a longing to create. You see I have always had this deep design to create things….works of art really. And what is writing but an art form. As a child my favorite subject in school was english. I loved the stories we would read and would digest every word, it would take me to the place that children go in their imagination where anything is possible The future and world can be anything they dream of. I remember in the fifth grade I had an english assignment to write a poem. It was a poem about birds that I saw often out the classroom window on the top floor of the elementary school. I remember my teacher giving me high praise for my creativity. I felt such pride in my accomplishment that I had a notebook that I kept writing me and more poems in. The next few years I would scribble countless of poems about the bus ride home and the kick ball I played on the playground, or the way I felt when my parents argued. Sometimes they were silly little things where I tried to rhyme every other word….even much that I would make up words if I couldn’t come up with a rhyme. Sometimes, I shared what I wrote and other times I hid my poems away like a secret that was between me and the paper I wrote my words on.

In the seventh grade my love of english class grew even stronger, and I remember my teacher handing out a list of books every one should read before college. The list had hundreds of books and stories, among the list were the great literary classics. Words that authors had written hundreds of years before I even came into existence. I loved stories, and yes I was that girl in class that often got in trouble for having her nose in a book and not paying attention. In eight grade one of my friends invited me to join the writers club, it was led by one of the junior high schools english teachers. We would meet in the library every  week, practicing different writing assignments that the leader or students would come up with and then we would share what we wrote. Sometimes we would write a short story or essay or poem, and the would sometimes pour onto the page and other times they would come slowly. However the time passed it became the one thing I looked forward to every week. I was with others who shared my love of writing and books. To think back to this time, I wonder why I haven’t started a blog until now.

Those years leading up to my ninth grade year, I had so much love for writing and reading…then I found myself stifled. In the ninth grade year we had to read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Two years before when I started my conquest to read all the great classics, Dickens had become my favorite author. I read many of his books, and Great Expectations was my favorite. So when I found out we had to read this awesome story for a class assignment I was excited, until the lessons started. I knew the story, and often I would read ahead of the assigned chapters. But when we were only reading one chapter every couple of days, and the teacher dragged out every little detail. It became agony to sit in class and listen to her go on and on. For the first time in my life I hated english class, not just hated but loathed. The one school subject that I had always been so excited for everyday had become sour. I still did well in english but I no longer carried a book around everywhere, I no longer read for enjoyment but rather obligation. It became this way until my senior year of high school, when I had a wonderful teacher named Mr. Yoke. In his class we spent the entire year studying the hero’s journey. Every essay we were assigned asked us to not only research the subject but also be creative in sharing our own voice. I realized that I had a voice worth sharing.

I began to journal in college, mostly because I has under a lot of stress and it became the one tool that allowed me to unwind. If you have ever written a journal before then you can understand how getting your emotions and thoughts out onto paper can not only give clarity to your experiences but also be a great tool to distress. Today I have many old journals sitting on the shelf in my bedroom. Sometimes I will go back and read the words I wrote and feel encouraged about just how far I have come. They are my outlet, a way for me to understand my own life. As I reflect on my journey with writing, I know that everything has led to a greater desire to share my voice. To speak what little wisdom I have gathered in my thirty some years of existence to give what understanding I hold to others. I do not know how many will hear what I have to say but knowing that it is possible for even one person to enjoy my stories makes me smile. Over the years I have often thought about how I could write a book. I am not an expert writer, and I have poor spelling sometimes. Yet, I know that like you I have a voice worth sharing. This is an invitation to come along with me. To hear not only what my story hold in the past, but also the present and the future. This is the beginning of sharing. May you find some small incite into your own life’s story through reading about mine.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  – Maya Angelou