For passion week, I’m writing about my passion which is exactly what you are reading and what I am doing now: writing. For a long time, I was trying to figure out what I was and wasn’t good at. More often than not, I found that while there were things I loved to do like sing or play instruments, it was more of a hobby rather than a true passion. I had to go through a lot of trial and error to figure out my passion.
They always say that you find the thing you’re looking for when you aren’t looking for it. In my case, this was truer than ever. It was around the time I became thirteen. It was a very weird and interesting time for me dealing with puberty and stress and learning how to deal with all of it. This was also coupled with the anxiety of being in a body brace for scoliosis for almost three years. For that long time, I hadn’t learned how to deal with anything. I was letting all of the negativity consume me and being the quiet and independent little teen I was, I didn’t tell anyone. Once I finally decided to let my friends in on what I was feeling, I was told it was just a phase and that they were going through something similar, but it didn’t feel like they understood. It felt like everything was being generalized. My emotions and negativity caused me to not want to leave my room, my grades dropped, even going to Disneyland gave me anxiety at some point. I didn’t know why I was feeling this way being a generally positive and peppy person. It wasn’t normal, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
After countless nights crying (being the sensitive Sally that I am), I had finally had it. I knew words had power, but I didn’t know how much. Until one night, I opened up a Google doc and just wanted to type my feelings away. It was like having a diary. As a kid, I always had a diary or like seven. I just loved having little notebooks anywhere because they either looked cute or because it was just fun to jot or doodle in my own little book. But instead of an actual diary, I spent maybe thirty minutes typing out everything I was feeling and once my fingers started to cramp I stopped. I could tell I was less tense. It felt like some weight had just lifted off my shoulders. So I kept writing. Instead of writing in first person, however, I decided that I would take everything I was feeling and create a character experiencing the same things I was. I would then create more characters to help this character deal with it the way I would’ve wanted in the real world. This became therapy and conversation with myself that I could always go back to when I needed it. And before long I had a thirty-two chapter novel done as well as five other stories in progress. This was really all I needed.
There are a lot of people out there who struggle to open up about their emotions. They leave them bottled up until they start to get consumed by them and before long, more consequences and negativity seem to follow as a result. That’s why I advise everyone to open up a notebook or blank document every time you need someone to understand you. Don’t bottle it up. There’s always hope. Because the one person who will understand you the most is yourself. So have that conversation until you’re ready to have a real one. Take as long as you need. Just know that the writing part can only be a step to remedying any mental or emotional issues you might be facing. Realize that both words that are written and spoken do have power.