I learned to form words in kindergarten.

 

Let me start by saying that I was a very competitive child. I still am competitive, but I am slightly less of a child and am a little better at masking my competitive side. When I was in kindergarten, however, the competitive child in me still ran free. It came out full force when Caleb Alexander managed to write five complete sentences during our class’ first ever free write and I had only mustered up a meager four. But then our teacher, Mrs. Baccei, read Caleb’s five sentences out loud and I could only barely contain my anger. They were horrible. They made absolutely no sense. In one sentence, he was writing about his dog’s name. In the next sentence, he ate an apple. Why had Mrs. Baccei not read my sentences out loud? Sure, there were only four of them, but they made sense! They were somewhat cohesive!

 

If I had to put my finger on when I realized my love for words, it would definitely not be that moment. Nope. The only thing that came out of that moment was little me deciding that I was terrific at writing, and Caleb Alexander was not. And, as is the case with many things that we believe that we are good at, I decided that I was going to get even better. I went home every night and wrote five or more sentences in my brand new diary. By the time the next week rolled around, I had eight sentences ready for Mrs. Baccei to read out loud. Caleb Alexander only had three.

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So, why did I start writing? Well, because I was a passive aggressive little kindergartener seeking revenge on a poor boy who had done nothing to me but threaten my position as the ultimate teacher’s pet. But why did I continue writing? Because I loved it and because I was surrounded by people who also loved it.

 

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I learned to respect words in eighth grade.

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I wish I could say that it was sooner and that it was a beautiful poem or a famous speech that coerced my respect of the written word. But, to be brutally honest, I learned to respect words when words hurt me.

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In eighth grade, my best friend wrote me anonymous hate mail. It was the first time words had made me cry. When I found out it was she who had written it, I was furious and hurt and didn’t know what to do, so I wrote a letter back and then burned it. Writing that letter helped me feel in control of the situation—almost as though I had the upper hand even if that feeling of empowerment was just in my head. I didn’t realize it then, but it was when I burned it that I decided to never let petty, immature people bring me down. Mean people just weren’t worth my mental frustration.  

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I fell in love with words when I was a freshman in high school.

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It was freshman year that I kept my first ever real journal. You know, one that isn’t from Limited Too and pink with some little white fuzzies and a lock and a key that you hide in the top drawer of your (also pink) dresser. Before that journal, I had never written something just for myself. I always wrote either with the intent of the piece being entered in a competition or it was for school. Writing for myself and only myself was a whole new ballpark. I’ll admit it, I’m a selfish person. Isn’t everyone? And here I was with these beautiful words that were meant for only me. Amazing. I was in love.

 

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I didn’t learn that words could make a real difference, however, until I was a junior in high school.

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My mom always wanted to go to Cornell for college, and they accepted her early decision. She only applied to one college. After graduating, she became a teacher, and then had my three younger sisters and me. After taking some time off, she got back into teaching by being a classroom instructor for fourth-sixth graders. A few years ago she went back to school and got her degree to become a principal. She wants to wait until at least three of the four of us are out of the house, however, before taking on that big of a time commitment, so instead settled for a promotion to a writing coordinator for kindergarten through fourth graders. She’s written two chapter books, has won multiple competitions on said chapter books, runs her own teacher blog which gets about 2,000 hits per post, and still manages to squeeze in the time to be a great mom.

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I don’t think I need to expand any more on why my mom is one of my biggest role models. Her resume pretty much speaks for itself. Every Friday night at my house, for all the weeks that I was home, we had family dinner, and after that, we wrote. My mom would go and grab the 8 notebooks out of the bottom drawer (I lived with my grandparents, as well, so the house head count came out to be a whopping 8), and hand them out to each of us. We would have five minutes of silent free-write, and then, if you chose to, you could share a part of what you’d written.

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My mom started this tradition because of my grandfather, her dad. Doc was diagnosed with Alzheimers when I was in fifth grade and we moved in with him and LC, my grandma, the next year. By the time high school rolled around, Doc was in the stage of reliving his glory days. In what seemed to be no time at all, we could all recite the Yale fight song by heart, and could tell anyone the story of how he and LC had met forwards and backwards. For some reason, however, when we gave Doc a pencil and a notebook, new stories came out of him. Each time he shared at the dinner table, it was a story I had never heard before. Words had done this. Words had made a difference.

 

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I write because I respect words, I love words, and I know that words can make a difference.