I think she was four during the nights when she laid in bed together with her mother and sister. She will put her left over her right leg only to be imitate by her sister while their mother holds high an illustrated fairy tale for both of them to see.
It was a warm, cozy summer night and children should sleep early but her mother starts telling them the story of a princess from that far away castle. She can't fully understand the words her mother utters, though its in the native tongue, but the colorful drawings she saw makes her wonder if the illustrated princess her mother talks about is real.
One year from then, she will start to go to school so her mother starts teaching her how to read little by little while her father is teach her how to write her own name. Maybe it was her father to be blame that years later her handwriting is mistakenly took as from a man.
Then came the time that she had to go to school. The thought of her mother leaving her alone in that strange place with other children scares her, yet she can't help but feel excited on what that brand new world will reveal to her. She become fascinated of that small thin woods the length of her arms with different colors, that piece of rubber that can erase everything she writes on a blank piece of paper, those binded papers they call books and the group of words that when she read, is telling her a story just like what her mother did during those warm, cozy summer night.
Never did she thought that knowing how to read is the beginning of everything.
Years pass, she had gone to the nearby grade school and able to finished her secondary education after. She made a lot of friends and experience things. She realize the beauty of knowledge and the advantage of being a well read girl and for once, she actually believe that life is just like that, you make friends, please your parents, get a high grade on every subject, read good books, put on some lipbalm so the guys can notice you and try to do what everyone else is doing.
When she goes to college she discover a larger world. There is more to learn but little time to accomplish all. She gets the chance to meet people bigger than life, whose aspiration is not limited to wanting a big house, a handsome spouse, a faster car and more zeros in bank accounts. She experience things and enjoy her own skin. She read many good books, fiction, fantasy, adventure, romance and her all time favorite thrillers, in between the academic ones. When she look up at the sky she thinks of how maybe, just maybe, she was born to do great things. That maybe one day she can do something that will of worth and be able to leave a legacy behind. One night, as she smile to herself slipping slowly in a dreamless sleep, she decided that she will find that very thing that she is destined to do so she can do it with all her heart.
But life is not always with bright and blue sky. She learned that there are people whom she cannot please, that her parents, no matter how high grades she show cannot be satisfied, that her teachers and professors pretends to be all knowing when in fact they just learn the topics ahead and that not everyone can be trusted. So she turns to books to satisfy a part of her that others cannot. She turn to books during those empty nights when she wants to speak her mind but no one bothers to listen.
And one day, without realizing it, she grab a piece of pen and put a single word at the blank sheet of a notebook. Then she write another word that becomes a phrase which becomes a sentence. She felt good so she continue adding sentences until it became a paragraph and the paragraphs becomes, what the english books called, an essay. She read what she wrote from the beginning and she gasp in amazement, not believing that she did wrote it. But an essay is never complete without a title, so shethink of one, and after a day she pick up a pen again together with the notebook containing her essay and above it she wrote "My Favorite Book Qoute and How It Changes My Life."
She laugh at how ridiculously happy she become.
There is happiness in reading.
There is happiness in writing.
But is there happiness in being read?
After a year she manage to keep a journal and many unfinished short stories. But she did not let anyone take a look on them for fear that they find her outrageous, weird, neurotic and ambitious.
But what is wrong in thinking that one day someone will tell her that she writes good enough to make worthy stories, like the ones she reads at night, like the ones she cannot put down easily. What is wrong in wanting to be a person everyone around her did not even dare of becoming even in their wildest dream. What is wrong in being different from the rest.
I want to be a published author someday, she whispers.
And just like the stories she read, there comes the stormy seas proving that when it rains it pours. She lost a loved one, devastated she goes on isolation. The people who called her friend, nowhere to be found, those who promise that they will always be by her side are busy. Her grades failed many times until she loss all interest in everything. That night, she curled herself at the corner of her room, crying, gripping a pen, reaching for a blank sheet of paper. She writes. She writes the paralyzing pain, the coldness within and the absence of anyone. She gave word for what she feels even if its all empty. She construct the paragraph that will make her remember what she thinks at the very moment she wrote it. And she felt free.
There is beauty in suffering.
There is beauty in emptiness.
There is beauty in words.
There is beauty in writing.
Its not long before she longs for adventure. She finds herself sitting in a coffeeshop just to observe the people around her. She will go her way buying books far from her town just to watch sunset on the nearby shore. She open herself to stories told by any kinds of individuals. And at the end of the day, she develop a sight of seeing things some refuse to look at and the ability to wrote down the memories that time will not be able to snatch away.
She wants to live and she wants others too.
She wants to feel and she wants others too.
She wants comfort and she wants to comfort others too.
Each, possible through her chosen craft.
Her body craves for fortune, her mind wants fame, her soul longs for immortality but her heart desires nothing but to help others with the gift she have.
But above all she wants to write.
And write she did.
She realize that everything that happen, everything she absorb, everything she learned and will learn outside and inside the school premises, everything she witness and taken part of, everything, let her become what she is now.
Im not there yet, she thought, but Im closer than I am yesterday.
Yes, my dear.
Yes, you are.
Hold on then.
Be patient.
Love and live.
Embrace it because it is the path you decide to take.
She wrote this piece. Not sure if its good, really.
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