Why I Write: To Express My Emotions

I will never get tired of answering this question. Why do I write? I started writing to figure out how to express my emotions. At the time, I was eating my feelings. It was a way for me to figure out an acceptable way to express love, hate, fear, etc.

In my sophomore year of college, I moved back home. College was HARD. I didn’t have any trouble with my classes, but I struggled with everything else — making friends, adulting, and being homesick. I was also questioning my major. Engineering isn’t exactly a straightforward profession. The worst part was that I coped with stress by eating. I gained thirty pounds during my freshman year.

My parents were gracious enough to let me move back into my old room and eat their food. They told me it was okay to take a year off — this was back in the day when it was less acceptable to take a break from college. So I came home to explore what to do with my life and figure out how to deal with stress.

THE JOB THAT CHANGED IT ALL

That year, I got a job at the local library, shelving books. I spent hours in the stacks, putting back, straightening, and rearranging volumes. The job required a lot of time alone, which was exactly what I needed. I didn’t have any help and not a lot of people ventured into the library during the day. My mind wandered through my…