The prompt for January 8th is “What do you like most about your writing?

I wonder how many people found this prompt challenging to respond to in the briefest way possible. I love writing and have a long list of reasons I am drawn to it. That previous statement would seem even more bazaar if I told you that I am dyslexic. I was not officially diagnosed, but by the time I was in the 2nd-grade, teachers realized that I would often get words and letters confused. So they had to come up with unique ways to help me reduce the confusion. One of my teachers accomplished this by telling me to think of the letter b as a flat-belly man and the letter d as a big-belly man. That helped, but I slowed learned my dyslexia extended to numbers, reading comprehension, and even my writing skills. So, throughout my primary school years, I was the slow student who tried her best.

The only subject I found any joy in doing back then was art. Anything that dealt with drawing, painting, graphics, sculpture, and making things with my hands was my escape. The only issue with that is; both my parents and the society that raised me didn’t see art as a serious endeavor. For them, adulthood was something you had to survive by getting a job that kept you from relying on others. During my last two years in high school, my mother seriously asked me what I wanted to do after I graduated, and I told her I wanted to go to college to study art in France. She looked at me in shock and proceeded to tell me why this was a terrible idea. For her, nursing school would be better than studying art. That interaction with my mother broke me, and then I realized I didn’t love anything else as much as I loved art. Her method of making me think seriously about the future made me feel like I would never find that one thing I was good at that everyone approved of.

A few years later, I decided to start college online since I worked full-time at a job I hated. I ended up taking an Associate degree in general studies because I was genuinely undecided on what area of study I should spend my time and money on. I opted for the associate degree only because I was very unsure of my future and my ability to finish a four-year degree. So, I decided that two years would be enough, and if I decided what I wanted to do by the last year, I would move on to a bachelor’s degree.

During the first year of the associate degree, I started writing. It began with a mandatory essay writing course. Where I was given the freedom to write about my favorite author, and it was in that eight weeks where I found that writing could be fun, personal, and give me a voice. After that, I started writing autobiographical short stories; the first was entitled Weekend Lime. Writing soon replaced art as it didn’t require spending money on paint, canvas, and other tools. All I needed was my mind, pen, and paper, or a laptop.

For me, the reason for writing is that I write better than I speak—my words in text or print sound sweeter than my actual voice. Writing allows me to be more expressive and things I wouldn’t dear say out loud I could write instead. Finally, when I started writing, it was a way of getting back at all the people who hurt me. Now revenge is no longer a motive; it’s through writing I’ve found the power to forgive myself and others.

What I like most about writing is that I can be myself and someone else all at once. I can explore the darkness and light within me; while emptying the madness in my mind without uttering a word. Writing for me, as cliche as it sounds, is therapy, an escape, and perhaps the only tangible yet intangible tool that I believe is my superpower.

P.S While I claim that writing is my superpower, I know that I still have alot fo learn and I am not perfect.