TO BE A WRITER

Growing up, I never really imagined becoming a writer. 

As surprising as it sounds, I had never truly adored writing nor reading in my early childhood. When I was a child, I had difficulty with reading comprehension during the earliest years of elementary school. And a part of me always knew something had been wrong, even when I had been too young to truly understand it.

I still remember the silence that would come after my teacher would ask me a question about a story during my oral reading exams, and recognize the mix of panic and fear in their face when I repeatedly answered questions incorrectly. My parents would bring me to my old hometown’s library to check out books, but even after reading them all, I wouldn’t understand what the stories were about aside from vaguely remembering what the characters had said. I recall receiving my school report cards at the end of each marking period and seeing the glaring grade and comments under the Reading category and feeling upset about the outcome.

I always wondered when the day would come when I too would be able to understand words the same way that everyone else did.

It wasn’t until third grade when my parents met my teacher for the seasonal parent-teacher conference. He noticed that I was struggling heavily with reading comprehension and had encouraged my parents to allow me to choose a book that I wanted to read. The day came when we visited the library and I found myself picking out the first book of Jeff Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series from the bookshelf. Before I knew it, I finished reading the book within two days. And for the first time, I was able to understand what the story was about. I was able to tell my parents everything that had happened.

This was the book that marked the beginning of my love for reading.

I think the most beautiful part of me beginning to read was to finally see a world come to life in my mind. I wasn’t solely reading stories in books, but also seeing them everywhere I looked in my life. I started to see stories in the people that I met. I started to see stories along the streets of the towns I visited. I began to see a world come to life inside of my head, which bursted with color and emotions. And there came a day where I began to put what I had seen and felt into words.

I began to write.

I began to read poetry and write poems when I was in middle school. I wrote stories about my life and shared words of encouragement to my loved ones during difficult times in high school. I began to write journal entries and prose during the height of the pandemic in college. And when the day came when I decided to share my writing to the world, I finally published my very first writing blog.

I used to believe that to be a writer, you were required to have works that were constantly published so that you'd never vanish from the public eye. Or that you had to be featured in the news, like the New York Times, to be considered relevant and worthy of having your words read. That at the very least, thousands of people should know who you are by your name alone and readers should be so well versed in your works that they can quote you at any given time.

But as I grew older, I realized that it had never been these things that defined a writer.

In fact, to be a writer is to listen and observe more of the world around you than others would simply gloss over. To be a writer is to cultivate stories in the people you meet and the places you step foot on. To be a writer is to feel each second of life so deeply and to realize how much you will miss it in the moment. To be a writer is to be able to see the potential of what the world could be within your mind and to be able to translate your emotions into heartfelt words.

Being a writer means that even when you aren’t writing, you are still thinking of the next moment you will feel so deeply in your life that you can't think of doing anything else but to write about it first. Because while moments are fleeting, you still hold the ability to make them permanent with the power of your words. And by bringing meaning to the experiences you endure and sharing it with others, you are able to connect with others on a level that only the heart could ever feel.

And in times when you experience the torment of writer’s block and cannot express how you feel in words, you feel a little bit of reassurance knowing that writing will always be there waiting for you. The moments of your life will help spark ideas that could have only been inspired by the change that had been transpiring within you all along. And the words you have been searching for will eventually return back to you once you begin to prioritize yourself. 

Growing up, I never would have thought that I'd become a writer. I didn’t think I would be able to read journal articles or synthesize research now, let alone a book with several chapters when I was younger. Writing helped me find appreciation in where I once started, and how far I’ve come along. It helped me understand the person I am in relation to others within this world. Writing helped me feel through my life experiences at such great depth that it excites me to share a piece that may even touch just a single person other than myself.

I never would have thought that I’d become the person who the words were written for. The person whose words had always been meant for. To be a writer is to realize that I had been a writer all along—I just needed to believe in myself first to bring my words to life.