I love writing
I love writing.
A statement that my younger self could never imagine I would say.
For most of my upbringing, writing was something I had to do, forced onto me by school. It caused intense stress. Given an essay topic and a word-minimum, I would panic, not knowing what to possibly write. It took me three or four times longer than most others to figure out what to say.
Five years ago my perspective on writing was changed. Observing a friend who wrote in his pocket notebook every day, I realized how useful it might be to put my thoughts on paper. So the next time he went to the store to buy a new notebook, I asked him to get me one too.
Then I wrote down any peculiar thought that crossed my mind. And I continued doing so nearly every day. Even more, I realized that writing is more than a way to just capture thoughts. I write to think—and I've always enjoyed thinking.
I often find words beneath my pen that I hadn't expected to come from my mind. Perhaps this is because writing does not just come from the mind; writing is a process of converting intuition into words.
I now write for myself rather than to meet anyone else's standards. It's still a struggle to find the right words, yet somehow I love it.
Translating notions from heart to paper is imperfect. But I don't know a better way to express myself.