The very first gift I ever received was a book of virtues from my Uncle. Every night my parents would take the book off its shelf and read to me until I began to get frustrated. Not because I didn’t enjoy the book, but because I couldn’t see the words like they could. When they spoke, pictures formed in my head. But when I pulled at the book to look at its page I only saw sharp shapes with harsh lines that never connected. Eventually the shapes became clearer. I could name all my letters and began sounding out simple words by the time I was four. I was passionate about reading from then on out and I loved how grown up it made me feel reading one book after the next without any help. Then I turned five and began kindergarten, and that’s when I learned about writing.

At the beginning writing wasn’t too bad. I could trace a letter or even a whole word, but when I found out that I had to write something all new by myself I had no idea what to do. I hated writing. I was never able to come up with my own story, everything I thought of began with an idea I had read somewhere else. So, I would sit for hours fixated on a blank page with nothing coming to my mind but hateful thoughts about how dumb I was and the shrill sound of silence. By fourth grade our class was expected to write a poem about the seasons. The assignment became the bane of my existence. It was hard enough for me to write a simple sentence, let alone three stanzas with a rhyme scheme, and figurative language about a topic that I had no interest in. My poem came out so bad I was too ashamed to turn it in.

When I began middle school I thought things would be different, that maybe we would just read in Language Arts. So, I walked into class on the first day with a big smile on my face ready to find out what our first reading assignment would be. I sat down and tried to hide my excitement when the teacher walked in with books in hand. I was immediately heartbroken when she placed a book of poems on my desk. Our teacher introduced her self as she circled the room, keeping her words in rhythm to her slow footsteps. Her voice seemed to grow in authority when she got to the front of the classroom and the pitch dropped as she gave us our first assignment: to write a poem by the following Monday.

My heart dropped into my stomach and my face became flush, I began to sweat at the thought of creating a poem. I became so frantic I couldn’t sit still through the class period, my own thoughts screamed overtop the sound of her lesson as I tried to keep the tears from falling. I could feel the clock's tick begin to slow against the rapid beat of my heart. I couldn't even breath, the air became so thick with my increased anxiety. As I sat there in pain I couldn't help but be disgusted by the calm that was on the face of every other student in the class.

When the bell finally rang I ran up to the front and searched for words that could explain my fears for the poem. I told her that, "I can't write, I have absolutely no thoughts! I mean, my mind is blank and when a thought does pop up, well, it's a terrible overused idea that no one would care about, and well, its just too hard, and there is no way I can do the assignment not even if my life depended on it!" Then my teacher looked me in the eyes and began to laugh. She laughed right in my face and just before I had a chance to run out of the classroom in embarrassment she told how silly I was being for getting all worked up over a simple poem. Then she said something that I would never forget, “There are no original stories, in fact there is only one story. The story of life” after she said that I was silent, letting it seep into my mind.

Then I smiled and realized how many stories I had inside of me, just waiting to burst out. I had always held them in, fearing that they weren’t my own ideas. That they weren’t brand new worlds created just by me, but they were. They had always been my stories. That night I sat down and I wrote a poem three pages long and while I took ideas from others I finally allowed myself to expand upon the ideas and create something beautiful. When I turned in my poem I felt more pride than I could have ever imagined.

Now, I look back and can’t imagine a life without writing, in fact writing became my life. In high school, I had two poems published in our literary magazine and today I go to Lindsey Wilson College as an English major. I am so thankful for having those negative experiences early on, without them I would have never realized my passion. Who knows where I would have ended up, if I was never given that simple gift.