I Am a Writer

When I was little I wanted to be a writer.  I kept secret journals, and filled decorated notebooks with fantastically imaginative stories in my neat cursive writing.  I had an ongoing serial novel running through my brain for years on end.  I was constantly creating and in the flow. 

When I was in high school I wanted to be a writer.  I remember I wrote a short story for a freshman English class assignment.  The teacher gave me an A+ with a perfect score of 1200 and commented in red ink, "Thank you for this story.  This is what short story writing is about."  I was so proud of myself and so immensely proud of my own writing.  

When I started college I wanted to be a writer.  I signed up for a creative writing class at the local community college.  I wrote constantly- short pieces about my life, my loves, my thoughts, my dreams.  But I was shy and I held back in class.  Years of high school had left me insecure about myself and my own abilities.  

There were others in the class who seemed like real writers.  I remember one boy in particular.  He was beautiful and talented, with long brown hair and piercing eyes.  He even had the perfect "writer's name."  He was charming and edgy and self possessed, and I felt completely unworthy around him.  The teacher adored him.  The other students idolized him.  I shrank further into myself, and changed majors after that semester.  I stopped writing.  

I always told myself I would write again someday.  I still wanted to be a writer.  But I stopped writing.  Until now.  And that is the magic for today-  finding my voice again, finding my flow, finding my inner writer who was always there, just buried underneath fears and blocks and years of built up stuff.  Today I am a writer.