*Writing piece that start as an assignment for a class*
Who are we in this vast universe? What are our ideas and thoughts between a billion other people? But most importantly where do they go after we forget them? When the years go by and our memory erases the ideas we once had. When at the end of life, all we have ever thought, feel, see, hear, imagine just disappears in dust like us. Am I being too pessimistic? Or am I just being too honest? Because that’s the truth; we are just temporary. However, I believe in a certain magic. I am not talking about fantasy, wizards, spells or anything like that. I am talking about a special magic that lives in my mind. One that makes me think that everything I have ever written takes on a special form that makes my words survive the passage of time even when I am not here anymore. And probably one day, my papers can also disappear, or my documents could be deleted. But at least they didn’t stay just in my mind.
Maya Angelou once said: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” A simple quote made me realize that I don’t want untold stories inside me. So, I start writing. First, for myself. To understand me, to learn about me, to hear my mind, to know my feelings, my fears, my happiness. My words that come out of my mouth are never going to reflect not even 50% of me. But my writing words… they know each inch of my soul, my spirit, my mind. They also help me to remember, so the idea I once had, haven’t been forgotten. Sometimes I open what at 13-year-old me once wrote, and I remember her and her ideas and fantasies. I save everything that I write, so one day an 89-year-old me can remember herself and not be forgotten in her own memory.
I also write in honor of my imagination, giving words to the stories that exist only in the solitude of my thoughts. From the first ballroom that I imagined at 12, with chandeliers hanging like stars from the ceiling, and the majestic gowns surrounding the place. To the simple scene that I wrote at 19, of just two people looking at each other in the middle of the sunrise; before turning away in opposite directions to never cross paths again. Every moment, place, character with name and face; that my mind has given life, is in words. Because, again, I don’t want to bury them inside me. And maybe one day, others can read them.
Once I accepted that idea, I realized that I also write for others. If the written I do for myself one day gets me the confidence to send to the public what I write for others, what can happen? Maybe one day, my imagination becomes someone’s favorite book. Or I become someone who people like to quote in their essays. Or I can make someone reflect about the ideas I am presenting in my writings, like you, who is reading this, maybe these words are making you think about why you write.
So, in the end, why I write? I do it for others, if one day my words see the world. I do it to understand me. And I do it so my story doesn’t stay bearing inside me and they can survive. Because the best thing about ideas is that they don’t die, they transform. And that is the magic I believe when I write down my words. Somehow, they transform, they travel, someone else hears or feels it and the ideas remain alive and never forgotten. A bit too mystical? Good thing is that writing and imagination don’t have rules, and maybe that’s my favorite part of doing it.
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