Why write now? Why right now?

Writing is revealing and intimate. The act itself requires patience, but also honesty to carve words out of thoughts. Young Eileen wrote about romance, about a deep desire to travel, and about growing up bilingual. I was my audience and she was critical, and even cynical. I dismissed my own writing by calling it trivial, or not important, and when it was too personal, I dismissed it for being too emotional. I convinced myself I was protecting myself and my loved ones from writing stories that could shed a negative light on my beautiful life and the amazing people in it. What if I published a story about a girl struggling with her weight, body image, and the negative body talk she heard growing up? I remember throwing away journals full of dreams, storylines, and beginnings. I remember feeling a stab of pain confronting what I thought was tangible failure. If I was truly "good enough," then I could write a story from beginning to end. I moved on from creative writing and found that critical voice was actually effective at doing that: literary criticism. Once I was an English major focusing on literature, I wasn't writing creatively anymore, but focused instead on research and writing about literature.

Teaching reading and writing helped me understand and see my own struggle with getting out of comfort zones. Students are incredible teachers, and teenagers especially have such raw emotions and share them them so candidly. Their honesty showed me the root of my "type and delete" reality as a writer. As I saw them stare at blank screens, or actually voice that they didn't know how to write, I understood my hesitations. What I thought was an inability to follow through, wasn't lack of determination. What I perceived as shortcomings, wasn't lack of skill. My biggest obstacle wasn't my admiration for other writers, but my own concern with the opinions of others and quite frankly, fear.

Why write now? I have to write because I have a lot to share. I am bursting with stories, fictional and real, about life, marriage, parenting, teaching, faith, family, food, love, grace, reading, theater, and the importance of encouraging each other. Whether I have readers or not, whether my stories resonate with an audience or not... I am a writer and I must write. Now that I am raising two incredibly talented and courageous daughters, I have learned from them that no story is ever too ludicrous, all ideas are worth sharing, and silencing creativity does more harm than good. I don't want to disappoint them or young Eileen... the one who wanted to write meaningful stories and join the ranks of powerful women who used their pen to challenge authority and encourage a new generation of writers to do the same.

Why right now? If not now, when? My mom always says that time will pass anyway, why not spend that time pursuing what you love? What would I tell my students to do? What would I tell my daughters to do? Well... it's about time I start taking my own advice. The path to becoming a writer is simply to write. So here I am. No titles, no expectations, no fear. Simply my thoughts, my ideas, my reactions, and my reflections.

Simply Eileen.

Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash