Why I Write

It's kind of a long story...

Why do I really write?

The short answer is: because I want to, and I can.

And the long answer is, well, long.

Let’s start with a little backstory. I did not grow up in a culture where you were handed a book the moment your umbilical cord was detached. I also did not grow up buried in books and reading every second of my day. Reading wasn’t a thing that you did for fun or entertainment. It only existed in an academic context, and all you read were textbooks; at least, that was my experience growing up. I remember my younger self memorising all the poems from the textbooks way before they were taught in the class.

But as I grew up, there were no medals hung on my walls or trophies decorated on my shelves. I wasn’t that involved in anything that didn’t require my involvement. And I was just average at whatever required my involvement.

After being alive for more than 2 decades on this planet, I can’t think of anything “significant” that I have achieved in my life. I believed I couldn’t do anything because that’s what the world kept telling me. I always saw this sparkly spotlight falling onto things that were on the horizon. I wanted to be good at drawing or painting because those were the superior forms of creativity to me. Honestly, I am terrible at those things. I just wanted to do the things that were in the spotlight; things that mattered to the world around me. Yet, wherever I searched for that thing – I only found an elusive shadow.

I felt incompetent and, frankly, like a failure because life felt like trying to fly without wings. I constantly felt like I was behind when I didn’t even know where I was going. I was on autopilot, sleepwalking through life while believing stories about myself that weren’t even mine. I was chasing that spotlight, which made me blind to the thing right in front of me. I continued on that autopilot life for most of my teenage years, until a few years ago when my mental health was not – well, healthy.

(I promise this is for context, not me just trauma dumping here.)

So, in an attempt to “fix” myself, I came across journaling. I didn’t see it as writing back then. I saw it as mental health advice that worked, so I continued. At that time, all I wanted was to feel like I could do something. Not something great or something revolutionary, just something. Not for anyone else, just for me. I never thought that writing could be the form of self-expression I was so desperately seeking.

Soon, journaling for mental health turned to writing poetry for fun, which I still think is very low-level and cringy, but then again, I wanted to do something, and it was something, so I let the cringe take its space.

In retrospect, I probably would’ve realised it sooner if I hadn’t tried to erase the memory of my early teenage years in school. Whether it was writing silly little poems about a crush or writing stories with wildly unexpected endings just to get some reaction out of my friends, I enjoyed writing. Although those poems and stories were terribly written, I wrote something. I did something.

Eventually, as life took centre stage, the wave of words within me receded into an unknown ocean, melding with it – untraceable.

Unexpectedly, some mental health advice on the internet that told me to journal brought those waves back to me. It was like finding my favourite toy that had been lost for years. Only it wasn’t a toy but a part of me that I lost to the world. The spotlight I was chasing had taken me too far from myself.

With time, journaling cascaded to other forms of writing, and here we are.

Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels

I don’t think I’m good at writing in any way, but also, what does being good even mean? I am not yet comfortable with the title “writer”; I am just happy that I can write. Because now, writing for me is a retaliation against the world. It is me creating my own spotlight. It is me reclaiming the part of me I was blind to when it was right in front of my eyes. This is my proof to the world that I am doing something.

So now, I write because I can, and I want to.

---

Please let this be a reminder for you to reclaim any and all parts of you that you might’ve lost to the world.

---