Finding My Voice… Again
Don’t let others silence you.
I’ve been a writer my whole life. I just didn’t know it. Not really.
The first time I really put pen to paper in a creative way was in first grade. We were tasked with writing a Haiku (yeah, my elementary school was a little on the overachieving side). I silently formed it in my head and scribbled it on some loose-leaf paper with my No. 2 pencil.
“Oh, little bluebird. Flying swiftly through the air. Spring is really here.”
No idea where that came from, but I felt a shift and a whole new world of words opened up to me in that moment. I became a storyteller with the limited ability I had at the time.
As I grew, I learned to speak from the heart and tell stories — MY stories — in a way only I knew how. By middle school, I won a national writing award. My English teacher had submitted our papers to the writing contest quietly in the background. I wrote of how I discovered a stray cat living under our front porch and welcomed her as a new family member, which apparently warmed their hearts. I think because of the way I told the story — I gave her backstory (or what I thought that was as life on the streets) and did it from her perspective. At least I’d like to think that’s what that was.
You would assume that would’ve been a neon sign pointing me toward my calling. Instead, I encountered the opposite. I was mocked by my classmates out of jealousy (“Of course they liked yours, it’s so bleeding heart.”) I didn’t get much support at home either (“Good job. But, you don’t want to make writing your career. It’s too unstable. Choose something practical and secure.”). Even my English teacher in high school put the nail in the coffin. I couldn’t make above a C in her class no matter how hard I tried, even though I knew I outperformed most of my classmates. (I later found out she was upset about something my family did and took it out on me).
It wasn’t until college that I found a renewed faith in my abilities. I went from being a Chemistry major to an English Lit and Linguistics major. I loved the classes and absorbed the content like a sponge. I was on the Dean’s List every semester once I made the switch because the courses were “easy” to me; I connected so well with them. I had lost my voice at this point and began to toy around with it in various assignments. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Still, I tucked away the idea of being “a writer” and threw myself into more “stable” career options — at that time, government work. (I seriously laugh about that now. I wish I hadn’t gotten talked into that one.)
I would occasionally creatively write quietly on the side in my personal time, but I ultimately followed in my father’s footsteps in law enforcement. I did so much technical writing through that. But I was never happy. It wasn’t my dream, it was his. And I always felt like something was missing. Some part of my soul.
I eventually shifted my career field to public information — strategy, marketing, and storytelling for other people’s brands. It was a slow shift, but somehow I kept being guided in the direction I should have taken in the first place — like The Universe was sending me a message I kept ignoring. Even with the jobs I previously had, it always seemed to lean toward writing somewhere. I would even get tasked by friends and coworkers for small writing projects they needed assistance with.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the work, but it always felt like I was lending my voice out; my words were never fully mine.
I just turned 45 last month, and I’m done with the detour of being someone else for others. I’m reclaiming the words I’ve carried with me since I was six: Writer. Author. Storyteller.
Not “aspiring writer.” Not someone who “writes on the side.” I’m finally embracing who I truly am.
Because writing has always been the way I make sense of the world — through novels, poems, essays, journal entries, or the countless drafts living rent-free on my Google Drive. Writing is how I connect dots in my chaotic brain, how I connect with people, how I connect with myself.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned with age, it’s this: we don’t outgrow our gifts. We just get better at owning them. (Owning your voice? Mandatory. Wrinkles? Optional. LOL)
Why I’m Sharing This
This site isn’t just about the tabs I have open — it’s about how I use them to build a life that feels like mine. And the biggest tab I’ve reopened lately is this one: writing for myself, not just for work.
Maybe you’ve been told something similar about your own passion — that it’s impractical, risky, unrealistic. But maybe, like me, you know deep down that the thing you can’t not do is exactly the thing you’re meant to lean into.
So, here I am. Finally saying it without apology or timidity — I am a Writer.
Because the “starving-artist” myth? Consider it officially closed — like an overdue tab I should’ve clicked out of years ago.
And maybe this will be your reminder to dust off your own words, too.
