Life is filled with valuable lessons that need to be learned before it is an option to blossom into maturity. One of these lessons that can be effortlessly found at the beginning of a youngling’s life is that “happy” is not difficult to grasp. Happy is found when riding bikes with the afternoon sun ablaze on your shoulders, licking to your heart’s desire at an ice cream cone, gazing at the breathtaking night sky, or simply being with the ones that hold a special place in your heart. But we often find ourselves stopping in our tracks, questioning this way of life; what is the true meaning of the word, “happy”?
Happy is when our modern world of stress and discipline that most of us are forced to life in today is disregarded, left buried in the dust and burdens of our past. Happy is when we finally break through the opposing chains of domestication that hold us back from the lives that we long for, and enter our own land of exclusive creativity and untamed imagination, all sculpted by your own unique personality. Happy is diving into a crystal clear pool of refreshing, self-sufficient liberty where the fiery, red hot flames of depression and evil do not dare to venture. Happy is the feeling we experience when God whispers faintly but sentimentally into our ears, “My dear child, use this opportunity I have given you to be happy,” and we smile the most genuine of smiles.

You have just experienced a microscopic fracture of my passion for writing. Happy is just a word. But when I write, “happy” can become “exuberant” or “ecstatic”. Writing allows average words the ability to receive an entirely new meaning, all at the power of my fingertips. When I write, it gives me a content feeling, a feeling that leads me to believe that writing is the only way that exists on this earth that illustrates my individual personality. The only successful method I’ve come across that welcomes me with open arms and says, “It’s okay, there’s no need to be afraid. Tell them who you are.” I find that writing is like a secret passageway, a portal of some type that allows me to enter my own world, where I feel free to paint thoroughly what is beyond my exterior. I used to feel average. No more. Now when I look in the mirror, past my long blonde locks cascading from the frame of my face is the pen of a writer, and a dream to pursue that will be hounded until the end of time. But this is only one of the many perks that writing brings to its devoted followers. Writing also permits me to acquire one of my most desired childhood dreams. Flying. While I write, something extraordinarily close to a miracle occurs. I can often find myself lost to the real world, drifting aimlessly as I soar gleefully over trees and mountains, weightless as the air that sustains us. By now you must think that I’m insane, that there is no way that this could possibly come about; simply scientifically impossible. But, if you just so happen to come across me while I am deep into the writing process, you would see me absently beaming for no apparent reason. And if you were to try and get my attention, you would find that I would not raise my head with question glittering in my eyes, and no responses of any kind will leave my lips. But I assure you, this is hardly a sign of ignorance. I am merely absorbed in my fantasy, nurturing my writing until I am ready to give birth to my story and introduce it to the world.

For all these reasons, writing is an essential part of my life, but they are minor and insecure compared to my ultimate incentive. Why do I stay faithful to the mother of literature and all her rewarding gifts, why do I become delirious with joy when I have a pen in my hand and a song in my heart? Well… It’s one of the closest things we have to magic. Today, the first of ancient practices are criticized as blasphemy and myths, that there couldn’t possibly be any magic of the sort. But those who say these horrendous things have overlooked the most modernized type of magic that is possible: The power of the pen. When I write, I can become anyone or anything, in anytime, in any place. I can take the place of the strongest Amazon warrior, fighting bravely for the sake of my Tribe, or the tiniest of kittens, so diminutive and adolescent that she can hardly mewl. Writing can make your eyes cloud over with despair and your throat tighten with sympathy when the hero returns from a perilous quest only to discover that his loved ones are gone, missing to the endless pages of time. Our hearts swell with delight to the point of bursting when the king is finally reunited with his long lost daughter, the princess. When we stare into the dying face of the Earth that we once called home, we feel a cold grip of fear clench our hearts as they run a marathon inside the well protected barrier of our ribcages.
I feel this desirable rush every time I pick up the pen, and when I set it down again, I am no longer the same person. Oh no. I become, wiser, stronger, and one step closer to the ultimate goal of any enthusiastic writer: The rewarding life of a true, successful author. And I’m not positive about the feelings of my fellow writers, but writing is a way to build self-confidence, lets you know warmly, “Hey, I am pretty special after all.”With more self-confidence, you find that more and more things that used to mildly amuse you start to make you truly happy. You smile more. And when you’re smiling, you will encourage others around you to smile, too. You may be thinking right now, ‘This girl is crazy; I feel a black wall of nothing when I write’. But when was the last time you wrote, truly wrote? Have you ever had this idea in your head, nagging like a pesky fly at the back of your mind, and thought, ‘wow, this would make a great story’? Don’t think you can’t. Believe. We were all born with the natural instinct to write, to put onto paper our thoughts so others may see in your head. As St. Francis de Sales said, “Success does not consist of being perfect- or in acting perfect. The striving is important.” Writing is a wild, let your hair down ride, and each time you write, you won’t experience the same rush, but a new and aspiring flavor. Maybe that’s another why I have made it a necessity to include writing in my life. But maybe that another story. For now, the writing is done, and I am happy, truly happy.