I am a writer

I realized last night, for the first time in my life, that I am a writer. Not because of the number of words I have written this month. Not because after years of working on my craft I am starting to see progress. Not because I have published any books (I haven’t) I am a writer because after I write my soul feels at rest, my brain feels happy, and I am most myself. After a summer of therapy and hard internal work, I have shed the misconception that success is the only indicator of me being able to say, “I am a writer”. I am a writer because I write.

I first wanted to be a writer when I was 9 years old. Even though I had written my disjointed words in a Little House on the Prairie journal since I was 7, when I turned 9 something changed. I became serious about taking notes and learning. It was decided, I was to be a writer. I remember clutching my notebook close to my chest and walking through the fiction section of our small-town library. “Each of these books” I thought “started with a single idea from a single person.” I was enthralled. Then at 17 I decided to pursue another field of study in college. Despite my 9-year-old dream, I decided against studying writing in college. Sure, I still kept a journal, I started a blog, but I never called myself a writer. Years later, after marriage and babies, and watching husband deploy, and moving and starting a company I began writing a book. I joined a literary group and still I would never say I am a writer. It has been five years since then. Five years of drafts and more deployments and closing my company, and raising children and therapy and refining my marriage, and new jobs. And here I am, 26 years after I first walked through that library, I am finally able to say, “I am a writer.”, not because I make my living that way (it’s not), or because of the awards (there are none), but because that’s who I have always been.

-Helen