Primera Primavera
I began by writing in my diary.
I hadn't written anything in a long time. In fact, I had only kept diaries when I traveled. But I thought, constantly. I couldn't turn my brain off to go to sleep, my dreams were just a continuation of the thoughts that would race through my brain, and as I woke up, I would analyze everything that I could remember. It was a constant state of thinking, of trying to understand something, anything. I wanted to make maps to try illustrate if anything I was thinking of made any sense at all. So I began to write. I remember starting out. It had been a long time and I was rusty. With no idea, where to start, I began it dear diary style. I wrote three pages the first day, and as I read it over, I realized I wasn't one hundred percent crazy. Only like 39 percent. I wrote about my friends and why I needed them: about my family, in hopes to understand them, about things too dangerous to say out loud. It was a place to hide my secrets, to clear my clouded mind. I wrote when I couldn't fall asleep, when I needed to make a decision, and when I was in distress. Being a teenage girl can be so stressful. I'm twenty, and I'm still a stress mess. My writing was where I could truly see myself. It became the way that I could tell people (myself) how I felt.
Last year, I was in a Spanish short story class I was supposed to write a short story, four or five pages over whatever I wanted. I had no idea what I wanted, and I changed my mind lots of times, each day telling my teacher something new. Although I was thousands of miles away from home, there were things that were bothering me. Memories that I had to let go of, but I didn't know how. They would come in the dead of night, and I knew that I couldn't tell anyone. It would change the way people saw us. It was too personal, too personal for my own diary. One day on the way back home from school, I took note of the beautiful summer day. I was wearing a pretty floral dress, and it swayed with the wind, and the trees copied the movement. I closed my eyes, and opening them, it in an effort to feel the wind, to focus on how I felt in that moment. I got home and began to write, to write about the changing seasons, that season in particular, and about those things that I couldn't seem to write down anywhere else.
As I read my not so fictional story in front of my class they asked me questions to what had inspired my scary story. I told them that I took something simple, something normal, and just changed it to be not so. My teacher grinned, and my friends clapped. They made me read the whole thing, and it was terrifying to be up there, but I also felt like I was telling someone what happened. I didn't have to think about it anymore. It was out in the open. And even though it was written to be fiction, I knew that a lot of parts were too true, and reading it, in front of friends, teachers, and classmates, made me feel like it was finally in the past. And I owe writing for helping me put it there.
I hadn't written anything in a long time. In fact, I had only kept diaries when I traveled. But I thought, constantly. I couldn't turn my brain off to go to sleep, my dreams were just a continuation of the thoughts that would race through my brain, and as I woke up, I would analyze everything that I could remember. It was a constant state of thinking, of trying to understand something, anything. I wanted to make maps to try illustrate if anything I was thinking of made any sense at all. So I began to write. I remember starting out. It had been a long time and I was rusty. With no idea, where to start, I began it dear diary style. I wrote three pages the first day, and as I read it over, I realized I wasn't one hundred percent crazy. Only like 39 percent. I wrote about my friends and why I needed them: about my family, in hopes to understand them, about things too dangerous to say out loud. It was a place to hide my secrets, to clear my clouded mind. I wrote when I couldn't fall asleep, when I needed to make a decision, and when I was in distress. Being a teenage girl can be so stressful. I'm twenty, and I'm still a stress mess. My writing was where I could truly see myself. It became the way that I could tell people (myself) how I felt.
Last year, I was in a Spanish short story class I was supposed to write a short story, four or five pages over whatever I wanted. I had no idea what I wanted, and I changed my mind lots of times, each day telling my teacher something new. Although I was thousands of miles away from home, there were things that were bothering me. Memories that I had to let go of, but I didn't know how. They would come in the dead of night, and I knew that I couldn't tell anyone. It would change the way people saw us. It was too personal, too personal for my own diary. One day on the way back home from school, I took note of the beautiful summer day. I was wearing a pretty floral dress, and it swayed with the wind, and the trees copied the movement. I closed my eyes, and opening them, it in an effort to feel the wind, to focus on how I felt in that moment. I got home and began to write, to write about the changing seasons, that season in particular, and about those things that I couldn't seem to write down anywhere else.
As I read my not so fictional story in front of my class they asked me questions to what had inspired my scary story. I told them that I took something simple, something normal, and just changed it to be not so. My teacher grinned, and my friends clapped. They made me read the whole thing, and it was terrifying to be up there, but I also felt like I was telling someone what happened. I didn't have to think about it anymore. It was out in the open. And even though it was written to be fiction, I knew that a lot of parts were too true, and reading it, in front of friends, teachers, and classmates, made me feel like it was finally in the past. And I owe writing for helping me put it there.
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