The Idea of an Essay, Volume 2

21 exact place the word lies on the page even matters. I realized that if I was to become the writer I dreamed to be I needed to learn to put careful thought into each word I wrote. For years, I expressed my thoughts best through writing; whether in the form of a poem, or thoughts scribbled down illegibly as I tried to pour everything that was inside my head onto the paper in front of me. It was a release, a safe haven, a place I could let every thought go. These thoughts I wrote down became a secret place for my mind to escape. Yet, a part of myself wanted to let someone else in to see what I had revealed. I struggled to share any of this writing. I thought it was petty and insignificant. When I read through anything I had written it lacked what I thought good writing needed, but I could never seem to break out of the cycle of mundane, boring expressions. It seemed plain and obvious. Too obvious. What you saw is what you got, and that really didn’t appeal to my senses the way I wanted. Still, I continued to write. Good or bad, writing seemed to be a part of who I was through my beginning years of high school. As I look back, I see that writing was a journey I undertook. It was sometimes easy and progressive, I sailed smoothly through poems and stories like the way water slides over stones in a river. Other times writing was painstaking and slow. I had trouble writing anything at all, and if I could come up with anything, it didn’t satisfy me. When I read what I forced myself to write it was bland and tasteless, lacking the creativity and fullness good writing requires. It wasn’t until I started sharing my writing that I was able to appreciate the beauty behind it and realize my writing had worth and value to other people, not just myself. Public speaking has never been easy for me. I remember perfectly the first time I shared a poem to a group of people. I showed my youth pastor at church a poem I had written because it matched up with the message he had just preached. Joe looked at me excitedly “You have to share this with the teens upstairs next service.” I looked at him nervously, “No way, I can’t do that.” But I couldn’t help but smile. He thought it was good – good enough to share with the other teens. That meant it had some worth and value, something that I had never realized my poetry had. I seemed torn in two; I wasn’t sure if I was ready to open myself up