February  21, 2014

Dear M,

As a child you wrote a letter to someone about how you felt, but you weren’t expecting your sibling to find it and make fun of the contents. For years, you separated yourself from your sibling’s harsh words and laughter that day ‘till years later, at twenty years old, you wrote again. You wrote about that one boy whom you liked at the age of five, and the things that he had said before he left, and that he later died when you turned fifteen years old. Somehow, you wanted to explore what came out from your mind and you liked the little story. It made you realize that words were powerful. You like to think that boy would have liked your tribute to him.

You struggle with English grammar every day because it doesn’t come easy to you. You do push yourself to learn; but find yourself falling behind everyone one else and you fear you’ll never catch up. Someday, you’ll get there and your writing will improve, and your work in progress will flow. You know the words have to come from inside yourself or it just won’t work. Sometimes you feel amazed at the things you have written already.

‘Writing what you know’ only goes so far, the rest can be embellished. No one will ever know except you. It is cathartic to write and get the words out that you can’t say in real time; there’s not much intellectual conversation going on where you currently live.

You crave that; to talk about intellectual stuff with others, but alas, you only make small talk as best you can, so you write. You settle for the intellectual things you read on the news. You are not comfortable in live groups in real time. But really, why write? I read an article posted today by a friend, and the article confirmed this idea in so many words: there is so much we need to write about and dig deep to even scratch the surface of our writing in order to ‘know who we are.’

You encourage yourself to dig deeper, really deep, but sometimes you’re afraid to find out what’s there in the back of your mind. Words once spoken can never be taken back, and the words you write can be erased; but the point is to try to balance both.

“I write to find out who I am.” You see this sentence make the rounds in your news feed on Facebook. It’s time to jump back in the fray and write more than you ever have and surpass last year’s writing goal for yourself. Write your own intellectual views into your characters. Open your mind and write what’s in your heart.

Keep writing, M. Become more bold and let you’re inner self shine.

M.

To read more of Mary’s letters, click on Mary!