Five Minute Friday -- Writer

This week's Five Minute Friday writing prompt is writer. Which is funny, because I've never considered myself a writer. But I have a blog. And I write on it.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this has been on the back-burner. It has been that little secret burning in the back of my mind... I want to write... But I was too afraid. But since this year I'm moving on from my scared places, stepping out from the ledge of my secure place, and putting myself out there in a real way, why not write? Why not do what I've been hearing the little voice in my head say for as long as I could remember?

Writer

Go.

I grew up in a small town outside of Chicago. I knew everyone I went to school with, everyone knew me. I didn't really need to learn to make friends outside of Kindergarden because I had already made them. I was comfortable being the shy girl in the corner, kind of awkward, kind of strange. But because I didn't make a sound, a splash, or anything at all really, it didn't matter.

Until I turned 14, and my mom and I moved to Georgia. The first day I showed up at my new high school, there was so much tension in my throat from being so terrifyingly terrified of speaking to anyone I didn't know (which was everyone), I couldn't choke out a single word. I shook the entire day. Actually, physically shook, not knowing if I'd ever find a comfortable place.

But I wrote. In my diary, in notes under the door as apologies for being an indignant teenager to my mother, for assignments in class. And I eventually came out of my shell. And it's funny, because people who know me now would never guess that I'm actually a shy introvert, trying to get through this life without making too much of a ripple, too much sound.

Apart from my father, Mrs. Calhoon, my sophomore lit teacher, was the first one to say it out loud: Kristin, you're a writer.

But I didn't know what that meant or what it looked like, "to be a writer," so I continued on. I continued on a path that was comfortable, that required no baring of my soul because that would be too hard.

Until I heard it again in college. It was my senior year and I was applying to graduate school to become a speech pathologist. I had been a sociology major, and my professor Dr. Toshi told me, Kristin, you're a writer. You sure you want this?

Was I sure I wanted this? To only have to write reports and conduct objective tests? To talk to others for a living and to touch lives in a way I never thought possible, all while staying inside myself, never letting anyone know the depths of my heart and soul?

YES! That sounds great! (If only I knew how vast the speech pathology field was at the time, if only I knew how different and amazing and wonderful my life would be because of becoming an SLP. More on that another time...)

I actually heard it again from a professor in graduate school, but it never really stuck. Not until I started this blog, and not until my sweet Gran died. And for the first time I publicly poured my heart out. I wasn't kitschy or silly or funny. I was honest about where I was at that time. And it was comfortable and wonderful and terrifying, but it was the real me. Since then I've been trying to find that girl. The one who doesn't hold back. The one who speaks truth lovingly, but with conviction.

And here I am, a writer.

Stop.

Until next time,
Mrs. Kuda