When I Realized that I Loved Writing

When I was little, my mom made me write letters. Lots of letters. All. The. Time. 

Or so it felt. 

I wrote letters to my grandmothers, and my aunts. I wrote letters to my friends, and my great grandparents. I even wrote letters to one of my great uncles for awhile. 

And I hated it with a passion. 

I hated coming up with things to say. I hated having to copy everything out in my best handwriting. 

I hated every part of writing. 

Except the receiving letters back part. That was fun.

Then came the time when I had to go through a writing book for school. Like a learn-how-to-write writing book.

It was torture. 

It was difficult. And boring. I cried over that book a lot. My poor mother thought that she had ruined me, and that I would forever hate anything to do with writing. 

I thought I would forever hate writing, too. 

When I was 13, I wanted to get a Facebook account.  No surprise there. 

My mother made me earn it. 

Two letters per week. Ugh. 

It had been a couple years since the awful writing book, and I found that it wasn't nearly as bad to write letters as it had been when I was younger. 

Sometimes, I almost even enjoyed it. At least the physical writing-it-out-on-paper wasn't so bad. Progress.

Through a serious of events, I quit writing those letters. Woohoo, no more nightmare. 

I wasn't that I had an issue communicating with the people I wrote to - they were nice people (still are) and I liked them (still do). I loved getting letters in the mail. 

But I wasn't a fan of writing. At all.

A little further down the road, I re-worked through that writing book that I had shed so many tears over at nine years old. 

It was easier this time around, as can be expected, but it still stretched me. 

I learned to not dread writing so much.

I had had a desire since I was a small child to keep a journal - something that I could read and look back on my life. But I never did. After all, that was writing.

When I was sixteen, I finally did it, more than just the handful of entries from between the ages of eight and fifteen. 

I opened up the cover of a new, pretty notebook, and started recording my life. Not often, but very few weeks maybe.

I realized the impact that that horrible, awful, tearjerking writing book had on my writing skills, and began the second one.

I started journaling more - mostly just notes from my quiet time, but several times a week.

I was enjoying writing.

Now, I've seen more, read more. I see the impact that writing has on lives. 

I write in my journal more - real things and feelings. 

It doesn't always come easy, this writing thing, and sometimes it's downright painful.

But I've come to realize, that in spite of hating it for so many years, I've come to love writing.