Unlocking My Love

My very first writing piece started when I was in fifth grade. Prior to writing it, I never thought I wanted to become a writer. Not many elementary school kids think, “I enjoy writing, I want to make a hobby out of it!” I was no exception. Why would I want to spend my time doing the one activity I disliked the most in school? I mean, we were always forced to write book report, narratives, essays, and more. However, what did separate me from my peers was my insatiable love for reading.

This was a time when reading chapter books were not part of the curriculum. We always had our academic noses buried in the pages of a large literary anthology with snippets from novels. I recalled reading about a young girl who enjoyed reading poetry so much she had poems memorized. Discovering her love for poetry inspired me to do the same. I wanted to be just like her, but failed to commit the time to memorize poems the way her character did in the story.

Several days had passed, and an idea struck me. It was early evening on a weekend, and amusing myself with just toys became boring. The urge to draft a story struck me to the point I rummaged through my red school knapsack and pulled out sheets of looseleaf paper. Plopping myself down at my home desk and wielding a pencil, my hand took off. I was like Ralphie from Christmas Story writing about the Red Ryder BB gun, but instead of supporting reasons to obtain a dangerous toy as a Christmas gift, I was pouring my imagination over the sheets with great fervor. Less than sixty minutes later, I beamed over my triumph of creating a piece outside of school without the brazen stare of my teacher.

Obviously, many years later, I no longer have the copy of the piece I wrote. With multiple moves and the truthful fact that writing had not captured my heart, I lost the piece (admittedly, I was, and still am, horrible with paper). I do recall what the story was about, though, and I shall share the synopsis of my _almost_ two-page short story (handwritten).

It was about a girl named Sarah. I chose the name because of my affinity for the British Sci-Fi Doctor Who, and named her after Sarah Jane Smith. She had gone shopping at the local convenience store for her family and was kidnapped. Kidnapping was flooding the news at the time with daily reminders about knowing where your children were. Unlike today, where parents tend to keep their children close, we were allowed to roam the streets as long as we were home before the lights came on. Unfortunately, my mom restricted me to my own yard, so I yearned to be like my friends and lived vicariously through Sarah’s adventurous spirit, even if it was a small trip to the convenience store.

I had not added any details about why she was captured, or the kidnappers themselves, but I wrote about how she was trapped in the trunk of the car. She was frightened and wanted to be freed. Sarah knew she needed to keep calm in order to devise a plan of escape. To calm herself, she began reciting poems she had memorized. Once she was able to think rationally, she waited for a perfect opportunity to make her escape, which appeared once the kidnappers opened the trunk of the car to retrieve her. She pushed them out of the way and ran for her life.

I ended the story with Sarah safe back at home and how grateful she was that her love for poetry kept her calm during a dangerous moment in the ten years of her existence.

Though I was proud of myself for creating what, I felt, was a literary masterpiece (honestly, hardly literary now that you know the synopsis), I had not developed the love of writing. The ten-year-old version of me just reread the piece and, of course, ended up losing it. I may even have suffered from the same fate most writers do: I wrote it, reread it, and hated it. After all, aren’t writers known for being our own worst critics?