I’ve known I’ve wanted to be a writer since my freshman year of high school. One fateful day, we were given a simple creative writing assignment. Well, it was simple for the rest of my classmates. Not so much for me. To them, the assignment was a few pages of double-spaced text. To me, the assignment ended up being ten pages of single-spaced text. And the length was a result of restraining myself and cutting out the bits that weren’t completely necessary.

And I got an A.

I still remember when I got the assignment back. Honestly, I nearly cried. I felt such a passion for the words I held in my hands, such pride at what I had been able to create all on my own. They were strong feelings that I wanted to keep experiencing.

Writing is what got me through the hell that was high school. The first two years were great. I had a good group of friends, I felt accepted, I was getting good grades, and things were just going really well for me. But my junior year was when I started to deteriorate. I still kept up my grades, with those always being my priority no matter what, but I started to lose myself. My anxiety and depression kicked in full-force. I lost friends because of my simple negligence, I was unhappy all the time, and I felt as if every pair of eyes were on me for no reason other than my own hyperawareness and fears of being judged.

But even through all of that, I kept writing. I started to perfect my style, I started to figure out what my voice sounded like, and I never stopped. Nothing was ever forced when it came to writing and everything was easy- two things I lacked in my daily life.

So when college started to approach, picking my major was a no-brainer: Professional Writing. Now, just to be clear, I don’t regret majoring in it. I love the English department at my school and I’ve had some incredible professors that have taught me so much about the writing world. But, somewhere along the way, I’ve lost my desire.

As a writing major, you write a lot. What a surprise, right? I suppose I knew this but I didn’t expect certain things about it. I didn’t expect to lose the desire to write on my own time simply because I had to do so much writing for school. I didn’t expect to ignore any creative thoughts that happened to pass through my mind because I had started to train my brain into only thinking academically. I didn’t expect to stop needing to carry a notebook around just in case an idea popped into my head. The ideas just stopped coming. Any ideas I had were far from creative and were, instead, things that focused on analyzing other authors’ meanings or comparing one novel to another. There was no original thought anymore.

And I accepted this as my reality. I didn’t try to force anything because I had never had to in the past nor did I think this was how creative writing should work. I shouldn’t have to make myself sit down and start writing a story. So I didn’t. And I began to move further and further away from that original passion.

I can’t begin to explain how empty that makes a person feel. I was just numb for a few years. I didn’t regret my major or anything like that but I wondered if I would ever be able to find that spark again or whether it had been extinguished permanently.

I tried to push myself a little bit, tried to write anything that came to my mind. But all that led to was dozens of unfinished and long abandoned word documents lying dormant on my computer.

It was just recently, only a few days ago in fact, that I realized the truth of the situation: my desire was not gone; it had just been misplaced. It had been moved aside, swept under a rug while I did what I needed to do. But that passion is still there and I’ve come to realize this over the past few days.

A beautiful friend of mine, Shelbie, has been helping me rediscover what I thought I lost. She’s helped me unearth it and shown me that, yes, I will need to push myself and force myself to do it for a while. And that’s okay. As long as I’m writing something, as long as I’m allowing my creativity to shine through, it’s a step in the right direction.

She’s been giving me single words. Just one word. And from there, I write. Whatever comes to mind, whatever I desire. From just a single word, a 600+ word piece is handwritten on a piece of paper.

I started off writing more personal pieces and then, just two nights ago, I wrote my first creative piece. And, wow, it felt good. It flowed out of me, ran out onto the page faster than I could possibly write or process. I know it’s been there the whole time but seeing it come through after so long of being hidden is the best booster I could ever ask for.

I am about to start my senior year of college. But I refuse to let the same thing happen to me again. I will not allow myself to retreat back into a completely academic mind. I will not allow my creativity to take a back seat. I will push myself, I will allow other people to push me, and I will keep writing.

And when I start carrying a notebook around with me everywhere I go, that’s when I’ll know. I’ll know my soul is back.