I’ve never had more of a transitional period than high school specifically sophomore-senior year which just so happens to be the years I decided to take journalism as an elective. I think I was born a writer, my mother used to read me Edgar Allen Poe in the womb, she would dedicate her own poetry to me. As soon as I learned to read and write I went through journals upon journals full of my stories and life updates, poetry here and there, I didn’t care what I was writing about as long as I was writing. However that light dulled in me from the ages of 13-15, things got especially tough and I lost sight of the things that had been bringing me joy for so many years prior.

And then I picked up the pen again as a happier, more grateful version of myself. This fueled my words filling up journals again, writing poem after poem, I’ve even been lucky enough to share my poems for audiences. It’s a surreal feeling going back to the things you once cherished so deeply in your girlhood, but it’s also very grounding.

I think when you’re a writer, and an avid reader, words have a way of bleeding into the rest of your life, everything around you is marked in beauty and nothing is all that serious. Every day I’m incredibly grateful to be that little girl sitting in her grandma’s car, writing in her little blue notebook, and consequently getting motion sickness; the motion sickness was worth it as were the struggles I’ve gone through to get here.