What inspired me to write

I pulled out a few of my journals from middle school a couple weekends ago (yes, this was scary). Between the entries about boys and drama in my friend group, there were random poems and chapters from stories I'd begun writing. They got me thinking about how I'd left that part of me behind once I hit college.

As a kid, I was never without a book. I spent a majority of my childhood in and out of sports arenas and I always had a book in hand, without fail. Reading was an escape for me. For at least the span of a book, I had a chance to be someone else. I was a pirate, then a fairy, then a princess, then a girl detective, and so many other things under the sun.

It was a natural progression, I think, for me to try my own hand at writing. In middle school, one of my best friends and I would email each other chapters at a time. As a side note, if anyone knows how to gain access to an old hotmail account, I would be eternally grateful for you sending that my way.

What we wrote was essentially Twilight fanfiction, but we were in middle school in 2010. It was inevitable!

Now, fifteen years later, I've found myself writing again. I've seen posts online about how adults are happiest when they pick up the hobbies they left behind in childhood, and I can count myself among that number. While I take it more seriously now than I did when I was twelve, writing has been a number of things for me as an adult, but most importantly, it's been fun and helped me feel the most at peace with myself I have in years.