write about what ways writing plays a role in your life-- why do you like it? is it hard? what's your relationship with it? be as abstract or direct as you'd like.

a conversation i had with my mother yesterday as i talked about how much i enjoyed my current major: she looked at me right in the eye and told me she knew right off the bat that i would write, and it was only a matter of time before i accepted my calling. i did for a long time when i was a child, in her defense. thoroughly self-indulgent, not unlike a child smearing paint all over the walls of her parents' house with her fingers. everywhere i went, i wrote. school assignments, fanfiction, original stories, dramaticized diary entries. i was considered good at it. (i take pride in the opportunities i was given as a result of my above average english, the competitions i went to, the awards i received, the praise i obtained...) i'm not sure if it was because i had a lot to say, or because i wanted to have something to say. an old diary entry from 2009 is a perfectly preserved snippet i can procure of this instance, of my seven year old self lamenting that my parents weren't divorced, solely because it'd make for a "good narrative". in hindsight, it's no wonder i grew to have such debilitating anxiety and self-doubt; ever since i was a child, i was my own voyeur.

when i write, i can be someone else. i hold no punches when it comes to lamenting about my stunted social life in person: communication doesn't come easy for me. i feel disconnected from the world for the most part. i have few friends- friends i hold close to my heart, but friends, but friends i struggle keeping in touch with all the same. but when i write, i can be anyone i want to be. at my most fantastical, i can be a heroine, interacting with my favorite fictional characters, be well-liked and better and more tragic- and, as per any queer fandom girl, engage in heterosexual romantic fantasies without seriously considering the idea of a real man. at my most grounded, when i write, i connect with people. be it putting fictional characters in interesting situations with other like-minded souls, expressing the feelings i am unable to verbally with words, or an effective plea to be seen. the first time anyone had truly seen that i was struggling with mental illness wasn't because i reached out or because i had a visible meltdown. it was because i wrote on a piece of paper in the detention hall, angry at myself and the world and my inability to hold myself together in a world where everyone else seems to have no problem with thriving. i remember one line well: "i wish i could just disappear."

it came easily to me before. documents upon documents of fanfiction ideas, original story ideas, character biographies and headcanons, paragraphs upon paragraphs of prose, argumentative or narrative. i struggled to keep my words within the word count- to be honest with you, i still do, although to a much tamer extent. to compensate for a banal outer world, i had to have a vivid, bursting inner world- and i had been so content with it for nearly half of my life. happy to stay in my own corner, with my puppets and dolls- because i never had a frame of reference.

the main difference i can think of between how i viewed writing in the past and how i view writing now is this: the cause and effect. in the past, writing drove my reality. now, reality drives my writing. finding beauty in the mundane helped me immensely with the ennui that had almost strangled me in my adolescence: the way the sky looks during sunset, the way my poor vision creates angellic rings around traffic lights, the soft murmur of white noise, the sound of my mother's laughter and my brothers' cheers, late nights chatting with friends on messaging apps, eating with them, window shopping, attending events and shows- the connections i've made with my online friends, all impermanent in my life but influential all the same. i despised reality so much that i wanted to create a better one in my head- i was almost adamant that i was capable of it. but now, i relish in the beauty of the ordinary. no more "born in the wrong generation" monologues, no more fantasies of being born in the us, no more fantasizing about being a celebrity- the more i grew, the more i found solace in myself, and the more i wanted to impart these feelings into the world.

thus begins my nagging desire to create something that is defined by me. not something that defines me, something defined by the concept of "me". not necessarily leaving a lasting legacy, but making a mark on the world that i so wholly belong to. of course, there's the inevitable obstacles that come with adulthood: self-consciousness, lack of time, and what i like to call 'tip of the tongue syndrome'- when that feeling is so vivid in your head, so close you can almost taste it, and yet falls apart when you attempt to capture it in words.

is it hard? of course it is. but writing has defined my life for so long. what would i be without it? could i bear to be without it? no. what would i become if i couldn't express myself, if i didn't have the potential to express myself in clearly defined words? how could i bear to be anything but real?

so i'm choosing to believe what my mother said: it is only a matter of time until i write. until that time comes, i will try and try and try. but this time, i won't neglect to live.