Brown Eyed Girl was PUBLISHED!!

Brown Eyed Girl is published people! Last Friday to be exact...

http://hellogiggles.com/why-puppies-could-save-the-world

Not gonna lie...seeing my article pop up on twitter and "retweeted" by other people was a crazy cool experience! :)

Ever since I was in 6th grade, I've wanted to be a published writer.

Not that I wanted being a “writer” to be my only job, because I always had grand ideas of “what I wanted to be when I grew up”. When I was a little child, under the age of 8, I wanted to be a figure skater, gymnast, and a life guard. Yes, all three of them. When I was 8 years old, I fell in love for the first time with this wonderful thing called soccer (or football, depending where you’re from…or really, where I wish I was from…lol). I knew I’d be traveling the world, stadium to stadium, playing in front of millions of people (I still thought at this time women’s soccer had the same audience as men’s soccer...which obviously isn’t true, though the “audience” numbers never mattered to me). I held onto this dream for years and years, except as I got older, I became content with playing in college and perhaps a professional team.

In 6th grade, as stated before, I found a love for writing, and knew one day I would be doing it, but it would always be “for fun”. I guess I was worried that when you start getting paid for your hobbies, at some point, they stop being fun, and start being “work”. I never wanted that for writing or photography (my other favorite hobby).

As I got older, “what I wanted to be when I grew up” changed several times; in high school I wanted to be a police officer (until I blew my knees out playing soccer), when I first started college I wanted to be a nurse, and then eventually I found (or rather embraced) my love for psychology and never looked back. That will be my career and I will love and enjoy it whole-heartedly. But still, amongst all these career path changes, I always harbored that love of writing and my goal was still the same; one day I would be a published author.

I hadn’t stopped writing either. Notebooks full of novels and short stories that I had started and abandoned because they weren’t good enough. Journals full of writings that would never see the eyes of another person because they were too personal and special. I’ve been writing for 15 years without showing a single soul. I always said at one point, I would let someone read them but never did. Last year, nearing my 25th birthday, I decided that life was too short to always be saying “someday”. I needed to start making my dreams happen. Someday was now today.

Starting this blog in November was a footstep toward my goal and away from the insecurities that have always plagued me. The thing is that I write for me and me alone, which means it comes from deep within a vein of my emotions. I write stories because I don’t have another option; they sit stirring in my head, pounding at the gate until I finally let them out and onto paper. I write stories because they’re adventures I wish I had or because real life can be so monotonous and dull. I write because without it, I don’t have a voice. I write because I don’t know how not to. 

Now, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I dreamed that dream as a 10 year old girl. But it’s something. It may just be “some website” to most, but for me, it’s exciting. It’s new and fun and terrifying because it’s bolder than I’ve ever been before. It’s not my full dream, but it's definitely a start in the right direction. One day I hope to be walking through a book store and see my name on the spine of a novel on an old wooden shelf. I’m not greedy or so ridiculous enough to see it on a bestseller table in the front of the store, though I wouldn’t decline it if it ever happened. On that shelf amongst the other dreamers is fine with me.

Until then, I will love and enjoy what I’ve always done, in hopes at some point there might be someone else who enjoys it as well. But I don’t do it for them, even though I’m happy that they’ve appreciated it. It will always be for me. For that burning feeling that floods my chest when I press pen to paper and create something physical out of the thoughts or emotions in my mind. Because for those liberating moments, I’m free of everything except my own feelings and imagination. 

I will always write because I don’t know how not to.