WRITING has always been a cathartic experience for me. It started when I was about seven. I was extremely shy and did not take to making new friends easily. Alone time was wonderful to me — I could draw in my little corner without interruption, daydream about being a doctor or actress while I gazed out our living room window. Because I didn’t talk much, there were a lot of emotions unexpressed within me. Drawings didn’t cut it. So I turned to words.
There were blank sheets of paper before me that one day. I took a pen and began writing. Days passed and I filled many sheets of papers with poems and illustrated stories. My Mom delighted in my new hobby and brought home scratch paper from work. I filled the papers with short stories, haikus, limericks. I felt free.
How did a 7-year-old find freedom in words? My parents regaled me with stories from their childhood, fairy tales and stories they made up themselves. By example, they taught me the beauty of reading and how it’s a fantastic playground for the imagination. Our household help shared stories of the provinces they came from. My younger sisters and I played a lot of pretend with our Barbie dolls. There were so many stories all around me. I wanted to create my own. I wrote about butterflies and fairies, little sisters, a guy eating the buttons of his shirt. I wrote and wrote and wrote. It felt good seeing my childlike daydreams come to life in words.
As I grew older, I came face to face with teenage angst. Ah, the teenage years provide such fodder for writing! Poems and stories had a mix of richer themes: the angry frustration of not being understood by anyone, the exhilaration of first love, the pain of having your heart broken the first time, the world-shattering betrayal of friends, the incomparable joy of sharing secrets with trusted ones… It was a rollercoaster of themes. I had turned to diaries at this point. Gone were the days of writing on my Mom’s scratch paper. There were secrets in my writing now, and to share them with my family was too embarrassing.
Why write? I write to release my thoughts, my emotions. I am much better at the written word than I am with the spoken one. When I speak, I stutter and stumble on my own words. But when I write, everything flows with more truth and beauty. I am in love with the written word.
If I don’t write in one day, I go nuts. Writing can come in the form of a blog entry, a little quip or a poem. I have to write. I have to let my thoughts out. I have to let the stories out. There may or may not be people who read them, but I have to write. It is my release. It is my therapy.
In writing, I have connected with others. In writing, I have come to help others. It is both a passion and a means to actualize my personal mission: to inspire and help others. Writing has helped me release so many bottled-up thoughts and emotions; perhaps I can help inspire others with some of the things I write.
I love to write. And for as long as there are words, my ode to writing will never end.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I can totally relate to this post. Except that your love (the realization) for the written words came earlier. My day isn’t complete without scribbling anything. =)
July 5th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Hi,
I just read your article ”My ode to writing’ - I can definitely relate! ^_^ Makes me miss writing, havent had the chance to write for quite some time.. ^_^
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
Hi Ma’am! I’ve been reading your entries lately. I’m honored to share with you the passion for written word.
God bless! =)
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Writing is therapy itself. As much as I love it, I also have a passion for reading pieces written in the non-traditional styles, which few are gifted with. The way writing was taught back then focused on grammar, sacrificing style in terms of tone and voice. Writing is an expression of language. Sometimes, logical, narrative or romantic.
Just as I love writing and reading excellent writing, I also obtain stimulation from numbers : the way they are put together to form relations and functions, the way they express a thought or a principle.
Few people can do both.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Yes, writing can be a form of “release”. I remember being told once that writing is thinking. if you write, you exercise your brain. since I’m bad with numbers, I opted to write na lang, hehe.