I’m Writing For My Life
I go days without air touching my skin. When I settle in front of my computer every morning, no light is shining through the windows. A glass of water and a cup of tea are my only companions. This has been my routine since I first started writing for my life.
In many ways, I’ve been blessed. I’ve always known that I wanted to be an author. My mother told me I was fake reading magazines at three years old. By eight, I had written my first book. In high school, my friends would steal lines from my poetry and recite them to girls. In university, I’d call my girlfriend from my dorm room on quiet nights and read passages from whatever book I was reading. This is always who I was.
I was scared even though I had no doubt. Turning down job offers because I wanted to focus on improving at my craft; because I didn’t want to commit any excess time to “working” more than I needed to feed my family and keep us sheltered.
I was scared even though I had no doubt. Even though I hadn’t made a dollar and needed money for my daughter to play soccer, or do ballet, or learn to play the guitar. Something inside me knew I would get there, that I would get here. I was writing for my life, for the life that I dreamed of when I flipped the pages of those magazines or read Beloved for the first time and cried because I couldn’t believe words can move people so deeply.
