the shapes in letters {a love letter to moreloveletters.com}
I am 8 years old. The teacher calls us to the magic reading carpet and explains a writing assignment to us. I don’t remember the details, but I remember how my story ended: “and then she woke up.” I thought it was the most genius, unique ending ever! And when I read it out loud in front of the class a couple of weeks later…the awed looks on their faces made me want more. So I wrote wild tales. I told crazy stories at lunch time to a huddled group of second graders clutching half eaten pizzas in their hands! I came up with extravagant sagas where adventure literally flooded everything I wrote.
I am 14 years old. I am a terrible journalist. High school journalism as a freshman nearly killed me. I hated every moment. I had no idea what I was doing and no one would help me. But at the end of the year, I received the Most Improved Freshman award (it still hangs on my wall, a reminder that beginnings have beginnings, too). As I walked bashfully up to receive this award, I was shocked that I was getting anything at all, but in particular, that very plaque. And while I had been on the verge of giving up writing all together because I was clearly awful, here was this little. Ray. Of hope. I decided to slide into that narrow hallway of hope and see where it led me.
I am 16 years old. I am in creative writing class, journalism just a bad taste in my mouth. It is everything I could have possibly dreamed of. It is my imagination coming to life and being applauded by my peers. I could do no wrong. I wrote my first play. I wrote my first love poem. I knew at this point I would never stop. The blood had been drained from me and replaced with ink. My heart pumped it joyfully. My journalism teacher snuck in one day during lunch and intimidated me into coming back to her class the next year. I was surprised that she would even ask, but she gave me no room to decline. It was the best thing I was ever forced to do…because in a way? It led me to you.
I am 18 years old. I have been the opinion editor and lead opinion writer for my high school’s newspaper for two years. I found my niche, my second home. I fought and struggled to succeed at something I had once been terrible at. I brought in my own visions, and style, and tastes. I chose to use my life as the base for everything I wrote. I enchanted people with the truth for once. And with my battles. And told them of my scars…I slowly faced my insecurities through the clacking of keys on the 2nd floor of my high school in a classroom tucked and folded in a corner. And I was stunned by how well my pieces were received. I won awards for them. People I hardly knew would tell me they read every article I wrote. Strangers would email my teacher to say she should keep me around. And so as my stories grew, so did I.
I am 22. I write love letters to strangers. I still write plays. I still write poems. I write stories. I write notes to my future husband. I write… even if no one will ever read. I write when I know the whole world could see. I write because I have to, because I need to. I write because words are a source of healing for me. They are constantly whizzing around my head and somehow my fingers make sense of them. Words can do so much good and they can do so much bad. They can crash into you like waves, knocking you right over. They can twirl you around a dance floor, leaving you gleefully breathless! They can twist and contort and gnarl your life. They can yank rugs out from under your bare feet, stealing the very breath from your throat. They can splash wildly around landing drops of happiness all over your lap. Words are how I survive. Words are how I sing and breathe, and laugh and cry. I am overjoyed to have the absolute privilege of being able to write to you. It enthralls me and Writing More Love Letters is always sitting on a bench in the back of my mind brewing up new ideas for the things I could say! This is yet another amazing door in what used to be a sliver of hope down a tapered hallway, but is now a house with secret passages; every room bursting with hopefulness! Writing More Love Letters is, in fact, my next greatest adventure!! And in the future, I will tell fantastical, whimsical, beautiful, heart-healed, glorious stories about it.
