It Just Has to Be

I am a writer.

I. Am. A. Writer.

The words sit on my tongue, not quite real, not quite solid. It's something I've sort of known all my life, but never actually expressed or embraced. Not until two weeks ago, when I turned to my fiance and said, "I want to write a book."

It's a book that has been in my head for over two years, tugging at my bones, pulling at my heartstrings, begging me, "please, please share me. Pour me onto a page and drink me back in, one word at a time. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be."

It doesn't have to be good.

It just has to be.

So, in the clutter and chaos of my home, I created a space for creating. Shelves of fantasy books, journals and crayons and pencils and markers and chalk for the chalkboard I made myself out of a pizza pan and spray paint. Cups of tea and sticks of incense and my very own magic wand.

And I wrote.

I am a writer.

Last week, I identified myself as a writer for the first time. I was in a job interview, and the interviewer asked what I do in my spare time, and I answered her, "I play music, and I read... and I'm a writer." It was words that I had never said out loud to anyone, not even myself, and suddenly, saying it to a complete stranger, made it feel very real. I felt a piece of that identity bubble up inside me, warm and gooey and sticky, filling in some of the cracks that had been growing and widening for longer than I can recall. It felt right. "I'm a writer." It legitimized years of literary obsession, of grammatical knowledge, of absorbing everything I could about the nature of words.

I am a writer.

It sits there, so delicate on the tongue, almost like it's scared to peek out and make its way into the world. It hides behind rows of bone, protected from critics and naysayers. It's safe in there, warm and snug, and unaffected by the outside world. No one can call it names like, "lie," or "joke," if it can't hear them through the soft pink walls of its safe house.

But creating has never been a safe venture. Nothing has ever been created that didn't first have to crawl out of its protective shell and stand in total vulnerability before the unforgiving masses. But that's what gives it life. Like a baby can never be born without leaving the womb, so a story can never be born without leaving the tongue. In order to gain life, it must first leave everything it knows behind.

The wallpaper on my writing laptop says, "Whether or not you write well, write bravely." (Bill Stout) Put the words on the page, and go from there.

It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be.

I am a writer.

So, I open my mouth.