I see ghosts. Every place I’ve been is filled with them. Every new place I go will inevitably fill up with them too. They are the ghosts of my friends, of my family, and of myself. They are the ghosts of time.

Some of them are dead and some are still living. When I see the dead ghosts, they make my heart stretch with longing, until I'm afraid it might snap, and I look away. The living ghosts make me smile to myself as I watch them, yet they too make my feel afraid; afraid of their encroaching deaths.

I am not a ghost, though by the time my future-self rereads this in reminiscence, I will be. I used to think I was afraid of change. Now I know it is not change that I fear but exchange. That is why I write. I want to change without exchange; gain without loss. This is not something I can control. Friends move on, families break apart, loved ones forget how to love in return. These become the dead ghosts in my life; the vague figures I see in my mind as I glance upon the places where there were once cherished moments. My family all together at the dinner table, playing house with the neighbor girls in the living room, my dad pushing me on the swings at the park, and me, feeling brave every time I’d yell “higher! Higher!” These moments I know can never live again. They are only in the past for they have died.

The only ghosts that I can even remotely control are my own. To do that, I must keep the ghosts of myself alive, meaning I must always retain the ability to be who I’ve been, as well as whomever I am at that point in time. I must know how to think in ways I’ve thought before as well as how I’m learning to think, and most importantly I must remember why these thoughts are meaningful.

I believe that my thoughts and feelings are the essence of who I am. My writing gives me something more real than watching the ghosts of my past selves play out in my mind’s eye. Writing adds voice and emotion to the mute and colorless memory, thought and purpose to place and position. It lets me see myself for everything I am so far; past and present. It shows me where I’ve come from and gives me clues to who I am and why. Ridiculous as it may be, knowing such a thing has never come easy to me or seemed to be a simple question. If I were to stop writing I would lose myself. I would forget who I’ve been and who I am. As soon as I breathe in, I breathe out and I am dead. Writing saves my life every time it allows me to keep those breaths with me.

I believe that everyone should write. Writing is like thinking, only you can keep it with you, add onto it, go deeper into it, learn from it, and transform it into something entirely unique. For me, writing is about freezing a moment in time and tearing it apart so that everything in that moment can be experienced to the fullest extent. Whether I am writing about a thought, a feeling, a moment in my life or a fictional moment, on paper, a moment can last for several. It can hover in your mind and really resonate, allowing the writer to discover possible meaning within it, meaning that can then be saved forever, and shared with others.

I honestly think that writing is the surest and truest way to self-discovery. Writing is the way to answering questions; if I lived a different life, who would I be? If I were only this particular part of myself, what would that look like? What does it feel like to be this other person? Writing can help you express the things that are important you; moments that matter in your life and are somehow special. It can help you delve into those moments, unlock the secret to what makes those moments special, give you the ability to relive them over and over again, and the power to recreate that special feeling in different moments, in different stories, in life and on paper.