Why do I write?

Why do I write?

Trying to answer that question is like trying to define love.

How do you put a feeling into words? Why do you love anything?

You feel something strongly... but what is that feeling? And where does it come from? Out of the blue? Or like a gentle wave that gains momentum and strength as it approaches the shore?

You see words appear on the page beneath your pen, and your heart melts.

You open a journal to a blank page, and something stirs inside you.

Just holding a pen in your hand sends a shiver up your spine.

You are where you belong.

Doing what you were born to do.

Who knows why this and not that--writing instead of drawing or playing an instrument, adding numbers, parsing the law, whatever.

Maybe it's not something to question, just something to accept.

A part of your identity as much as your fingerprint or the features on your face or the sound of your voice.

You write because you can.

Because there's nothing else that lets you be yourself in the same way... without pretending, without needing to wear a mask.

There's no hiding from yourself on the page. No barrier (except for your own limitations and talent) to keep you from seeing (being) yourself.

With each word you come closer to the truth of who you are, and, in the process of putting words on paper, you discover who you might become.

Each word is a gift into the nature of being you.