In my senior year of high school, I took a creative writing class. It was called Literary Magazine, and the class was designed to expand our writing abilities and comfort zones. We experimented with all types of writing and became a family of sorts, able to share with each other and give honest, reliable feedback to one another. This was the experience that helped me discover that I wanted to be a writer. As I kept writing, I eventually declared my major as English, intending to pursue a writing job after college. However, it wasn't until I began writing depression-based poetry and Odyssey articles that I discovered an inherent truth.
Writing is absolutely, 100 percent terrifying.
Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. I love being able to create something that makes other people think or feel. I love the feeling of pride that comes when I write something particularly good, and the release that comes with pouring myself onto a page. But there's a part of writing that will always be frightening, because it's such an incredibly intimate act for me. There are things I've penned that are downright scary. Things that would make you see me in a different light. Many of my journal entries, poems and short stories are extremely private, and either stay completely hidden or are only read by a select few people whom I trust.
Writing, for me, is a way that I express my innermost thoughts and feelings. This is scary because it's one of the rawest forms of exposure possible. Every time I post an article or have something published, I gain more of an audience to my thinking, my emotions, my soft spots. With every new work and every new reader, more people are shown deeper parts of me, and this can be really unsettling. It shows places to exploit or manipulate. It makes it so much easier for people to get to my weaknesses and to hurt me. And to top it all off, I've had people tell me that if I write about things like my depression and anxiety, I will be called crazy and judged for the rest of my life.
As scared as I am of that happening, there's only one way to move past this: to keep writing. I know that in spite of all of the terror of exposure, one day I could see that vulnerability as a strength instead of a weakness. And I know that it will be so insanely rewarding when my words, ideas and thoughts can touch and inspire people.
So I'm going to keep on writing. Even if I only get 10 views a week and people get sick of seeing articles from me. Even if people are going to disagree with me, judge me or call me crazy. Bring it on. This is how I express myself, how I send a message to the world. I've chosen a life of exposing myself through my words, and I'm prepared for what comes with that. The terror of what could happen is nothing compared to how much I love writing.
