Remember

I remember when I used to write. Like really write. All the time.
Unapologetically and without stopping for hours and passionately and it brought me so so so much joy.
I would write plays with roles for each of my friends, using up all my grandmother’s computer ink to print copies for everyone, and make them rehearse at recess.
I differentiated the lines so, if reading wasn’t your favorite or you hadn’t found your groove with it yet, you didn’t have as much to say.
I would write stories every day, different series, where the characters went on wild adventures.
There are two I remember very distinctly because I loved working on them so much and each series had at least six or seven books in them.
One was about two best friends, Tom and Katie, who lived next door to each other and navigated high school life. That series was all about the teen drama. (Or what I thought teen drama was like—I was just reading books and writing stories, so I just wrote what I thought dramatic people dealt with.)
The other one was about a young girl named Jade who lived in Brooklyn and was just a joyful black girl who loved music, the mall, and her friends. One particularly memorable chapter had Jade going backstage to a radio station concert and falling in love with a famous teen singer.
There were lots more stories too, some I remember and many I don’t.
Even in college, as the posted pictures show, every day was full full full of words. Every day.
Even when I would come home late at night from Unbirthday celebrations.
The pen would write for me.

Recently, I was looking at my journal from college, one of the many I have kept.
The pages are falling out, the glue on many pages is so dry that the pictures are fluttering off.
I spent some time sitting with the pictures and words I started collecting in 2002. That book went everywhere with me.
I wrote and
wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote some more.
Then something changed. As things do.
And I wonder what that was.
I wonder about the exact moment that fear and doubt and other things caused me to pick up a pen or marker or pencil less and
less.
My mind still comes up with stories and ideas. I write them down far less.
And I wonder.
Not looking for an answer to dwell on, just putting my wonder out there.

Just like I reclaimed the power of binge reading (almost) like I did when I was younger,
I want to reclaim the power
of writing without fear.