I always thought I had a wild imagination. On long car rides, I would make up characters in my head and create their whole life story, and once I got home, I would try to spill everything on a piece of paper. I drew up characters of people I wish I was and made their experiences ones I wish I had. Growing up, I had dozens of spiral journals filled with unfinished stories of people going on adventures, solving crime and eventually finding the ones they loved. As I grew up, those journals started getting tucked into my desk drawers, and eventually, I forgot about them.

I’ve always been the type to keep my emotions inside of me. I convinced myself that I didn’t want to bother anyone else with my problems, that eventually, as time went on, I would be able to forget why I was upset in the first place. However, as things started piling up on top of each other, I felt my emotions get out of control. I didn't know how to deal with everything, so, eventually, I crashed.

Keeping things bottled up is never healthy, and I blame my emotional instability for my reluctance to open up about myself. Everyone knew me as the bubbly, outgoing girl in their class. I was comfortable speaking in assemblies, I had good relationships with my teachers, I was friends with everyone — there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with me. I felt like I was wearing a mask throughout high school, and only a few people knew who I was underneath. I tried to bury any imperfections about myself underground. However, they would come back to haunt me whenever they dug themselves out.

Reaching a low is always hard, and in high school, it’s even harder. I thought I was trapped within myself, that I wouldn’t be able to get out of this hole that I dug myself into. I would skip classes because I was too tired to get out of bed. I had friends coming over to visit because they were worried about me. My mom and dad didn’t know what to do with me. Even though all these people tried to help me, I still felt alone.

I started writing letters to myself because I figured the best person to understand where I was coming from would be myself. Letter after letter, I realized that opening up to myself on paper helped me better understand my own emotions. I would start figuring out solutions for myself as I talked about my problems. I was giving myself advice by just being able to give myself an outlet. It was like writing out those adventures of the characters my imagination made up all those years ago, but instead of solving their problems, I was solving mine.

My letters started turning into short proses. Paragraphs summed up the bottled up emotions I had that day. Soon enough, those paragraphs turned into lines of poetry. I was always interested in poetry, ever since I randomly watched a Youth Speaks video on YouTube. I started writing my own poetry; painting beautiful pictures with words seemed to be a growing talent I was creating for myself.

Whenever I felt happy, I would write. Whenever I felt mad, I would write. Whenever I felt sad, I would write. Instead of bottling up my emotions inside of me, I would write.

I had journals filled with different poems and stories, and if I didn’t have my journal handy, I also had dozens of notes on my phone. Whenever I felt upset about something, I would read an old poem I wrote, and if I didn’t have one that expressed how I felt that day, I would write a new one. Poetry became the outlet I needed. I was able to let go of the things holding me down. I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders.

Poetry also taught me another important thing, and that was opening up. My poems allowed me to talk about my problems in a way that still kept them hidden. I was able to address my issues directly, but to a reader, it could still be masked. I didn’t have to tell people my darkest secrets, but I still felt myself opening up to them.

I started sending my poems to my friends. I started reading them out loud to them, and then eventually, they convinced me to go to poetry open mics around town. I was able to connect with people with my writing. People felt the emotions I was going through, and I didn’t have to spill my secrets to them. I had a creative outlet that was helping me grow emotionally as a person.

I owe a lot to writing. I honestly don’t think I would be where I am at right now if I didn’t have writing as an outlet. Once I joined college, I lost touch with it, and so I joined Odyssey. I never want to lose my love for writing, and I hope that I can keep creating connections with it as well.