In the Beginning...

I still have the first story I ever wrote.  The pages are yellowing and a little crumpled, and partway through you can see where my six-year-old handwriting is usurped by nine-year-old handwriting when I decided to add on to the story later.  It's a beautifully awkward story, full of all the holes and jumping from thought to thought that you would expect from a child's imagination.

Ever since that first story, that first time I realized I could put transfer my hyperactive imagination onto paper and actually make something of it, I have been in love with writing.  I treasure the eight pages of a story from third grade, when I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish it in time for class the next morning.  I remember my teacher stopping me in the middle of my reading it out to the class, because already at that age I was long-winded.

I remember my seventh grade English teacher writing on one of my stories, "I can't wait to buy the first book that you publish!"  And my eighth grade English teacher not knowing what to say when I handed in a folder for a short story assignment because the story was too long for me to staple.  Then in high school I was exposed to new genres, including journalism (not my forte, to say the least) and new styles of creative writing I had never heard of before.

After that my writing got pushed to the side.  There's something about moving across the world by yourself at the age of 18, attending university in a foreign language, and having children and all that comes with them - or that doesn't, like sleep - that pushes writing and other enjoyable hobbies to the sidelines.

This blog is meant to be both a challenge to myself and a therapeutic outlet to express myself amidst my hectic life trying to balance motherhood, couplehood and work.  I challenge myself to write a weekly post, purely for my own edification, and along the way to explore new genres and styles of writing that I'm less comfortable with.  I was given a gift for words and words make me happy.  If I don't seize the opportunity to make something of this gift, then what was the point of having it to begin with?

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?"