Archive of Our Own ^beta

Writing for me has always been a way to help me sort out my own thoughts and feelings. The first real poem I remember writing, “Someone once told me…”, is possibly the clearest example of that. I wrote it back in 2002 in response to my grandfather dying. It was the first time I had experienced death, and what confused me the most (and will probably confuse those who know how emotional of a person I am) was that I did not cry once. My parents sat me and my sister down, told us the news, and while my sister bawled her eyes out next to me, I did not shed a single tear. All I could do was silently nod my head to confirm I understood what had happened.

I was only eleven years old, but I was fully aware of the situation. I understood he was gone and would not be coming back, yet the sadness never came. It’s not like my grandfather was a stranger, either; we were quite close while he was alive. So, why was I not heartbroken? Why was I not devastated?

Why was I okay?

While most kids doodled in the margins of their notebooks, I would always fill mine with words. I’d always been fascinated with rhyming and the rhythm with which spoken words naturally had. It always brought me comfort to play around with language and how it landed on the page. So, puzzled by my emotions (or lack thereof), I picked up a pen and started to write.

With that, “Someone once told me…” came into existence. It suddenly became clear why I didn’t feel the need to cry. The final line of that poem showed my most true feelings:

“He’s standing here, right next to me.”

The reason I could cope with his death was because I knew his memory would live on. He might have been gone physically, but he would always be there in some way or another, taking up that back corner of my mind. And by writing the words down, that’s how I came to realize that. Subconsciously I knew all along, but putting it down onto paper made it obvious to me; the confusion I had felt for weeks was now gone.

I wrote about my grandfather a lot those next few years. Those other poems are now long gone (possibly sitting in a file cabinet at my parent’s house), but I still remember the release I felt writing them. It helped me cope, and by sharing what I had written, it ended up helping others in my family cope as well.

I have always been very shy and quiet in person. Writing is where I feel the most comfortable communicating. My thoughts tend to get all scrambled up in my head. Just speaking them straight out, I have a tendency to ramble and get sidetracked, losing the original point I was trying to make. To put the words on paper first and shuffle them around always helps me get them out more coherently. Not just poetry, but notes and cards as well. I’ve always loved to gift my writing because it is my most authentic self. It’s me on the page. And seeing that my words were able to help my parents, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, but especially my grandma make it through this difficult time? It was like I had been given a gift in return.

Once I entered college, I really started to embrace all facets I could explore with my writing. I’ve looked back on those poems and stories a lot in the past year. A lot of them (and I mean a lot) will stay hidden in the depths of my computer and never see the light of day again. At the time, those topics were very important to me. Reading them now not only makes me cringe slightly, but they also make me proud of the person I have grown into. I am no longer that naïve, easily impressionable, and self-deprecating 19–22-year-old girl. I’ve come into my own, learned to ignore those toxic thoughts and beliefs, and have become truly happy with the woman I am today.

Not everything from my college years was a lost cause, however. I’ve gone back and reworked quite a few pieces from that time, and still have some left I want to revisit and make stronger. The last poem I wrote before graduation, however, is still one of my favorites.

“Woodworks” is once again an introspection into my own feelings. It is about choosing between childhood and adulthood, a topic I struggled with a lot upon my time at university ending. By writing it, I was able to find that balance, learning that you don’t have to give up one completely to embrace the other. And by realizing that, I felt confident about entering the real world.

Perhaps I was a little too confident, because for nine years after graduation, I didn’t write anything at all. Ideas still came to me, but to actually put them down on paper was suddenly daunting. Writing which was something I had always loved was all of a sudden intimidating. I kept all those thoughts and feelings inside my head where they continued to scramble and warp.

I went through a lot of life altering things throughout those nine years: I moved out on my own for the first time; I went through a significant weight loss; I watched my mother be diagnosed and thankfully beat cancer; I had my first relationship and my first breakup; I had back surgery; I had to quit dance; I discovered my sexuality; and I lost my grandma who was the most influential and inspiring person I have ever had the privilege to know. She was by far the biggest supporter of my writing and whether she fully understood it or not, she would always ask me for more to read.

I have always been an anxious person, but those levels were at an all time high during that time. Obviously, a lot of that was because of what I went through, but I often wonder: if I hadn’t stopped writing, would things have been different? Would I have handled my anxiety better? Would I have made different decisions?

That being said, I don’t look back on those years with any regrets. There is nothing I would go back and change. I am a firm believer in that everything happens for a reason, and everything I’ve gone through, whether I enjoyed it or not, has shaped me. I would not be who I am today without the good and the bad.

And with that sentiment, though it may sound silly to some, falling into the Naruto fandom has changed my life.

I had watched the anime as a kid, and when I found myself looking for nostalgic comfort to help me through anxiety, I decided to dive back in. The canon material wasn’t enough however, and I fell back in love with reading fanfiction as well. I found quite a few authors who’s works and styles I admired and spent many sleepless nights binging their stories. They brought me peace and an escape when I felt like the outside world was crumbling. It helped ground me, and I’ve read a lot of their works many times over now.

I found some of these authors on social media, and between that the few comments I’d left on their fics, they found me as well. I was soon invited to a discord server that became so much more than just about Naruto. I was suddenly surrounded by amazing writers who I had admired from afar for months/years. They talked about their struggles, their accomplishments, and their individual processes when it came to their works, and to hear all that made me remember the release that writing used to bring me.

So, with that push that I didn’t know I needed, I took one little idea that for some reason rooted itself in my brain and wrote it down. I examined the feelings of an existing character as opposed to my own thoughts, and even so I wrote for me. It was so freeing to occupy my brain in that way after so long. To this day, I am still very proud of that fanfiction because it served as a steppingstone for more stories.

Only three days after that, an idea for an original poem came to me. And by “came to me”, I mean I had an out of body experience where my brain would not let me rest until I got it down on paper. “Labels” was the first time in a long while I sorted through my own thoughts and feelings with a pen in my hand. It was liberating. That poem speaks true to who I am and my journey to discovering my sexuality. As the last line says, “That is something I take pride in”, both the journey and the poem itself.

From that point on, I couldn’t get the ideas to stop coming. In total I’ve written seventeen fanfictions, four new original poems, and reworked eleven older pieces. There are some works I enjoy more than others, some I think I would write differently, and some I wouldn’t even want to write at all now. I’ve had a “training wheel” period of sorts, trying out different styles and concepts. With that, I’ve come to find not only my strengths as a writer, but who I want to be as a writer. Looking back on all I’ve created, there are three pieces from the past year that I think best represent that.

“Just Relax” is where I really pushed myself for the first time. When it was done, it was the longest piece I had ever written in my entire life. I went in with a simple idea that continued to expand and grow the more I worked on it. I came out with something beyond what I imagined I could do. To this day, it is my most successful work on this site, and I could not be more proud of that. It’s where I first allowed myself to let the story tell me where it wanted to go, and it was the perfect precursor to writing my first multi-chapter story.

I truly thought if I were to ever have a longer fic, it would take me years to get to where I wanted it to be. And yet, as I keep getting back into writing, I keep surprising myself with what I am capable of. “Plié-sed to Have Met You” filled an entire notebook from front to back, and only took me little over a month to complete.

That story is so much more than a fanfiction to me. Even though I was writing through the lens of a fictional person, it was like I was writing as myself. It was never meant to be nine chapters long when I started, but the process was so natural to me I couldn’t stop. I truly did not think about it. I just let the words flow out of me and before I even realized it, I was writing with my heart on my sleeve. I somehow managed to write about my own thoughts and feelings through the eyes of someone else’s character, and it gave me an even greater sense of inner peace.

My favorite line from that work is this:

“For the first time in a long time, Sai felt no shame at being different.”

On its own I admit it isn’t very profound, but to me it speaks to the human experience. To learn to accept oneself is something everyone in life goes through. By writing about Sai’s journey, I came to appreciate and love my own even more. I, too, felt no shame at being different. And that is why I’m so happy to have found my way back: I have felt more like myself the past year writing again than I have in a very long time.

After that work came “The Meeting Place” and this is where I think my writing truly comes full circle. As I said at the beginning of this essay, poetry is my go-to genre. It comes naturally to me. It makes me feel at home. But were it not for the prompt I received for that gift exchange, I don’t think I ever would have taken the leap to put fanfiction and poetry together myself. To combine the two has been exhilarating and has only opened the floodgates to even more ideas. I’ve written seven poem fics so far including “The Meeting Place”, and all of them I treasure just as much if not more than my original ones. To examine the inner workings of a character as well as play with how it shows up on the page is once again my truest self shining through my writing. And again, were it not for that prompt and the encouragement from friends, the chain reaction of making it to where I am now never would have happened.

I often wonder what led to my original writing hiatus. Was it the push to find a career? The burnout from completing two thesis projects at college? General exhaustion from being an adult? I’ll never know the true answer, but if I had to guess, I think the real reason I stopped was because I forgot how to write for me. It came to be that there was always an assignment or project I had to create for, needing to stick to guidelines in order to receive a passing grade. It became less about what I wanted to do and what felt right to me and more about what does the teacher want to see and what will get me the A?

As I said before, everything happens for a reason. I was meant to stumble around until I met the group of people who reminded me of what is important. I was meant to lose my way for a bit in order to come into my own. I was meant to be lost so I could be found.

I am happy to say that now, first and foremost, I write for myself. What I decide to write fills me with great love and joy because it is what I want to show the world. I don’t expect the whole world to want to read what I have to say; that is not why I share it. I decide to share my writing because I remember how it helped those around me in the past. A few simple poems had helped my family cope with a difficult time life had brought our way. Poems I’d written for me to help me had helped them without me even trying to. So, if there is a chance my words can possibly help a friend or stranger who needs them, then who am I to deny them that?

The simple art of putting pen to paper, something every child learns in school, has been life changing for me. I could not be more thankful to those who got me here. Were it not for them inspiring me to be the best version of myself, these words on your screen right now wouldn’t even exist. A great peace has come over me with writing and has become integral to my day-to-day life. This past year, my anxiety has decreased, my demeanor has been happier, and my soul feels free. It is a gift that I treasure above all else, one I never want to return or exchange.

Writing for me has always been a way to help me sort out my own thoughts and feelings. And if my writing here has helped you as well, then I thank you for allowing me the honor to do so.