There was a time when writing seemed so simple. I never had to think about a story, and I certainly never hesitated putting it down on paper. I was a child with a wild imagination. I remember vaguely the first book that I ever wrote.
I was eight years old. My sister had given me a red book, that had a beautiful picture on the front of it. Looking at it, it looked like a children's book with no title. Inside there were blank lined pages. Giddy with excitement I went straight to work.
I wrote a story about a little girl with a dog named 'Ginger', who would climb into a cupboard to escape into a world of her own. A secret world, that no other person knew about except her dog, whom she told everything.
Suddenly and idea came to me.., I wanted so badly to share my story with others. I beamed with excitement as I made my way into the school library. I wanted to donate my book to the library so that the children in my school could sign it out and read it! Proudly I handed the one and only copy to the librarian, and she thanked me politely. Only a few short months later we moved, and I never saw my book again.
I would give anything, to see it again. I'm almost certain it would bring tears to my eyes.
Another story I wrote, came from a dark place. I wrote a story well beyond my years, that detailed a fear that I had been holding inside. I was scared to death of the wild thoughts that haunted my imagination. Creatures that lurked in the shadows, the things that I always feared, but could never see. Not everyone enjoyed it, and I had a really hard time with constructive criticism. I took my writing very seriously, and such comments I would take personally, like the attack was towards me as a person. I continued to write... and hear feedback that I welcomed with smiles from ear to ear and also with great frowns of disappointment. I wrote about everything... which very quickly began to take a poetic form. It was how I expressed my feelings, good and bad.
I remember once feeling so angry because it seemed that what I wrote about was always, too much of something. When I would write about something too sad, I would change it to make it sound happy. When I wrote about my blessings... I would change it so it wouldn't sound too self centered. It never ended, because what I was trying to accomplish was impossible for anyone. I was trying to please everyone, and in the process I lost what was most important. I lost myself.
In my deep frustration, I picked up my notebook full of poetry and threw it in the trash, where it belonged and never looked back. I gave up.
For more than six years I couldn't write... I refused to write, one single line of poetry. It was the hardest six years of my life. I had kept all of my feelings bottled inside, and many times exhausted and self destructed my body to hide the pain.
It wasn't until I went to college that the pressure finally burst from me like a shaken can of soda. I full out bawled my eyes out when I discovered for the first time who I really was. When I was given a choice of monologue to do... I always picked the one that would make me the most uncomfortable. The one that was leaps and bounds out of my comfort zone.
By the end of the school year, I picked the most challenging one I could think of. Everyone was so used to my smiling face, my nervous laugh, my cuteness... that it was unexpected to see me a complete mess. I prepared for that day for weeks.
I was sixteen years old and pregnant with the a guy who could barely support himself let alone a baby. I spent countless hours researching teen pregnancy. I rehearsed that monologue again and again. Even tape recorded it and played it in my sleep, burying it deep into my subconscious. When the big day arrived, I sat in my seat rocking back and forth, back and forth. Preparing for my role, even monologues ahead of my own. My professor Mr. Bianchin, turned to me and smiled. 'Michelle' He challenged. 'Your up.' It was just a few short weeks ago that Bianchin kicked me out, for coming to class unprepared, and I was sure the look of anxiety splashed across my face was a dead give away, that again I have come unprepared. What Bianchin didn't know, was that in my mind... I was pregnant, and more important than the last ten minutes of this class was how I was going to tell my boyfriend, or my family for that matter.
The classroom quickly diminished right before my eyes, and I was talking to my best friend. Telling her my situation... my pregnancy. My big mistake. My loser boyfriend. I went from disbelief, to laughing, to being really angry, to full out bawling like I was the only one in the room. Bawling so hard I couldn't even stop myself minutes after my monologue had finished. No one said a word. Not one peep. They hung on silently to the emotion that held them glued to their seats with tear streaked cheeks. While I cried, my peers were crying with me.
It began with one real loud hand clapping sound that snapped me out of it. I looked up to see my professor standing up from his chair clapping, and before long the entire class stood and roared with applause.
The whole process brought me back to my passion for writing. The only reason my performance was believable was the page upon page of character sketch I wrote about this girl. It was almost like I created her whole life story, and I knew her inside and out.
The program that I was in was 'Music Theater Performance' In which as a student you needed to excel in three areas (singing, acting, dancing)
I'll never forget the day Bianchin asked me, 'Why are you here?' as my grades started slipping in dance and music performance. 'I want to be a writer' I told him realizing for the first time that the acting had brought that passion back into my heart. Writing had become more of a priority for me, than singing which I thought I loved, my reason for being in music theater in the first place. Bianchin leaned back in his chair stretching, 'Well, I think your in the wrong program' He replied, holding back a smile.
