I Am a Writer

I am a writer.

It's taken me 36 years to say that.

Before, I've always equivocated. "I like to write," I've said. "I blog sometimes." "I enjoy writing." But to actually call myself a writer? Isn't that for people who do it so much better than I do? For people whose imaginary stories spill out of their fingertips and onto the page, creating magic in their wake? For those lucky souls who possess the ability to create alternate realities, to transport others to places unseen and yet just as real in the imagination as the page on which its written? Surely it's not for a person like me, a person who struggles to find the right words and put them in the right order, who deletes and rewrites and still isn't satisfied. It cannot refer to someone who writes about the mundane in spurts and starts and wouldn't know author's craft if it bit her in the face. A writer is someone polished, someone smart and creative, someone who knows what the hell she is doing.

What I do is not a calling. It's not my life's work. It's a hobby, at best. It's something I pick up and put down as it suits my needs. And yet - I craft  blog posts in my head in the car, in the shower, as I'm falling asleep at night. I write novel-length comments on social media. I argue, I defend, I explain, I express myself at every opportunity via the written word.

When I'm not writing, I miss it. There's a hole. I think about writing at odd moments, just before I dismiss it as too trivial to record. I feel somehow less myself when I'm not writing. I can't really explain it - I just know that I need it.

Writing is  a part of me. I may never publish a book, and that's okay. I may never have an audience beyond my small group of close-knit friends and family. That's okay, too. What I'm slowly realizing, is that none of that matters. My identity has been in flux lately as I struggle to redefine who I am, what I believe, what matters to me. And I keep coming back to this: I am many things. I am a mother, a teacher, an advocate. I am a survivor. I am a designer and a crafter, a home chef and a planner.

And I am a writer.

Acknowledging that, even if it's just to myself, feels good. It feels right.

 It feels like coming home.



Comments

  1. I feel the same way. I get a huge release when I write. But I often let it go when life gets crazy. I am a writer too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a good start on the rebuilding - knowing your parts so you can assemble them into the whole.

    ReplyDelete

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