Words & Stories
Words and stories were always the things that made the most sense to me. My whole life. The rhythm of a sentence, the shape of a memory retold, the way language can transform chaos into something that feels almost ordered.
But I didn’t write enough. I didn’t pour the thoughts out of my head and onto the page. I let them circle, repeat, fade. I had short bursts sporadically throughout my life where I made the effort, but for years, I carried around the sense that writing was central to who I am, while treating it like an afterthought.
But in the last few years I’ve turned the tide, and made a more consistent effort to put pen to paper; whether it’s been through journaling, working on a memoir, or having journalistic work published.
There’s a quiet grief in realizing how much time you’ve let pass without practicing the thing that feels most like you. But there’s also relief in knowing it isn’t gone, that you still have time. And when you finally return to it, the years you think of as “wasted” might actually be fuel. The experiences, the missteps, the observations that now pour out with more weight than they would have before.
I’ve told myself the lie of “too late” too many times already. Too late to change careers. Too late to leave a marriage. Too late to start fresh. And each time, I’ve proven that wrong.
So maybe this is just another version of that lesson. Starting late isn’t a failure. It’s evidence that the thing mattered enough to keep tugging at you all along. I don’t know what will come of these words, or where the stories will lead. But I know this: the only real mistake would be not to write at all.