Five Minute Friday: Writer

I've always wanted to be a writer. Since I was a little girl with writing assignments at school, I have written stories and poems and most anything that came to mind. That was back when I wasn't worried about getting it perfect and just so...just when I let my heart into my fat pencil and out onto the wide-ruled paper with stories about birds and how camels got their humps. I even wrote about how zebras got their stripes and about all sorts of other creatures. When I wrote about the birds, I drew their pictures, too. It was in me to give them unique trees, branches criss-crossed and special. The teacher said so, nobody drew their trees like I did, and nobody could tell the story that I had to tell.

Then, came the big girl years, when nothing I ever did was right, even my writing. Inner and outer critiques closed off the heart that was trying to get through to the now-ballpoint pen and skinny-lined paper. The zebras and camels and birds went away. The writing became just school assignments, just something for a grade.

I still wanted to write, but was afraid to.

Then, I was a mama, and the hurting like I've never hurt before started, and I had to write to let it out. I had to let my Dorian know that she was not forgotten. The poems started in earnest then, telling my little one how beautiful she was and how much I wanted her here with me.