Blocked No More

Reading and writing were two of my biggest passions growing up. I would get lost in fictional worlds while reading and turn mine into a fictional one too while writing. It would always start out with "This is how my day went today..." and end in some dramatic new twist ending that never happened. I haven't written a story, or a journal entry, or anything in almost 20 years!

Such a foreign feeling of home. I wonder if this is what it would feel like to go back to Afghanistan. That's where I was born, Kabul, Afghanistan. I was 10 years old when we moved to Canada as refugees after my mom single handedly took on the Taliban.

I was engulfed in war yet I remained so hopeful back then. Now... I am ashamed of what my younger self would think of me. I was supposed to be a superhero. I was supposed to save the world and end world hunger with only my pen in hand and my brain in head. No one predicted me going so far down the rabbit hole that I couldn't get out, not without a monkey on my back.

I never know where to start. I never know how truthful I should be. Do I write about it as fiction, change names and events to make them more exciting and emotion provoking? Do I record the events exactly as I remember them? How much of myself, my family, and the various communities I've been a part of do I want to expose?

Sometimes I get angry at the state of the world and truly want to expose everyone. Speak my truths and let everyone, including me, deal with the consequences. But what good has ever come from waging war? Time and time again we play an eye for an eye trying to see situations more clearly.

...

My writing sucks! I have terribly simplistic form and I lack enthusiasm. No matter how hard I've tried to stay strong against the world, the world has managed to put me in at the least a melancholic place that I presume what the term 'Limbo' refers to. It has also made me oh so greedy.

I constantly catch myself looking at that word counter. Hoping to summarize my whole life in a matter of moments and have it come out a masterpiece that everyone will just throw their time, likes, shares, and money at. That's not how anything works anymore. You have to put the leg work in, even when they're finger legs walking across the keyboard with the ease of a butter knife going through melted butter. That backspace button will tell you all about the slippery slope of me typing my thoughts. If only I took it one step a time I wouldn't be so jumbled up.

"And I want to enter a writing contest?!" I think not. My beginner words, phrasing, and sentence structures that are desperately trying to stay hip without completely losing touch with the fundamentals of the English language are no match for the seasoned story tellers on this site. I guess this is more a journal entry about me having writer's block for so long than an actual story so it doesn't really matter how I write it... Right?

20 years! I used to write until the sun rose and I would get maybe an hour of sleep before my mom would be peeling me out of bed to go to school. Then for 20 years I did not write a single journal entry, a single story or a poem. Ah poetry! How I miss thee, I now have shit memory so to poem again is unlikely.... ehhhh? ehh? Pretty good.... right...? You could call it modern contemporary couldn't you?

I definitely have a unique personality and I am hoping to unleash some of my skeptical optimism in a 'world changing' kind of way upon the Vocal community. From what I have gathered so far I have found an ethical platform that emphasizes on good hearted and positive practices that uplift people and bring them together while recognizing creative talent. Thank you for providing a place where I can feel safe in making my creative mark.