To the stranger who turned me into a writer

Insecurity is a bitch, you know?

It's kind of like a magic wand. It can take a motivated young girl who skips recess to write books and magically turn her into an adult who "hangs up the pen" and studies statistics instead. All that motivation, gone in an insecure flash... It's the fairy godmother that Cinderella never asked for.

And yes, if it isn't clear, this story is about me... and you.

So bear with me for a minute: before I tell you my point, I need to tell you something about myself.

Throughout my childhood, I adored writing. I drew shitty picture books about my dog as a superhero in preschool. I wrote bad Harry Potter fan fiction in elementary school. I penned cheap knock-offs of dystopian YA novels on Wattpad in middle school, and in high school, I wrote melodramatic plays based on the reality TV my mom would watch. I obsessively scrawled though pages of lined paper, hogged the shared family computer, filled notes apps with driveling rants and dialogue. I truly, and I mean truly, loved it.

And then suddenly, in college, I stopped.

I stopped writing for a couple of reasons. I was busy, I wanted to pursue a more "economic" degree, I never thought my writing was good enough to lead me anywhere anyway... And emphasis on that last one. The truth is, I've never really felt like a good writer. My mind can be a bit cruel, and I've never seen much worth in the things I write. There's a seething perfectionist who lives in my bones and tells me that if I can't do something good enough, I shouldn't do it at all. So I quit writing and forgot the most important thing - It had made me happy.

So, by now, you're probably thinking, well clearly you didn't give up writing, you're doing it now, aren't you?

Yes.

So, would you like to know why?

Let's rewind to when I said, "in high school, I wrote melodramatic plays based on the reality TV my mom would watch." This was actually somewhat of a lie. I only wrote one melodramatic play based on the reality TV shows my mom used to watch. It was a one-act play titled, Purple Ink, and it was loosely based on my mom's obsession with the TLC show, Hoarding: Buried Alive. The play centered around two sisters coming to clean out their mother's home after she had passed, only to discover that she had become a hoarder in her later life. It was a soft reflection on grief, charged with all my 17-year-old emotions.

So why does this matter? Well, I wrote Purple Ink for my theater class's senior showcase, which means it was performed live by a handful of my classmates, with me as the director.

That's where you - the stranger - come in.

I don't know if you remember this, but you came up to me after the performance. You grabbed my arm with the same hand that held wadded tissues, and you were red-eyed and sniffling, and you looked at my face and said, "I just can't believe a 17-year-old wrote that."

And I couldn't even tell you if you said anything before or after. If we had a full conversation or if it was just that moment. I don't even remember what color your hair was. I just remember you looking at me and telling me that, even though you didn't know me. Even though we would never speak again. Even though you had no ulterior motives, so you must have been telling the truth.

You telling me this did not stop me from quitting writing just a few months later. But your words were the one who brought me back to it.

Six years later, I was at my parent's home for Christmas, and I found a printed copy of Purple Ink under my childhood bed. Suddenly, I remembered that moment - you grabbing my arm. And so I sat down on my bed and opened the script and read it all again - except I read it this time with your eyes - the ones that found something meaningful in those pages.

And I liked it.

I brought the script back with me to my grad school apartment, and transcribed it all into Microsoft Word - tweaking the most melodramatic parts to fit a 23-year-old's sensibilities rather than a 17-year-old's. Then, in a moment of audacity and delusion - I submitted the play to three separate play publishers.

And, because I was in my early twenties and still insecure and stupid, I told myself that this was my last chance to be a writer. That if the play was accepted, I would pick up writing again, but if it wasn't, then it was my sign that it wasn't meant to be.

So boy am I glad that after two rejections, the third place said yes.

And thus a writer returned to her body.

Purple Ink has since been performed around the United States in at least 12 different states. I have had other plays represented in festivals, published one more play, and now have a working relationship writing plays for a local murder mystery company. On top of that, I've delved deeply into poetry and novel writing, and self-published a couple books in those genres. Writing has once again become my favorite hobby - the thing that keeps me up at night and seduces my brain into windowless daydreams.

And truly and honestly, I have you to thank for this Renaissance. I fell so far into the pits of insecurity that I lost something I really love. But you gave me something I really needed - you gave me a voice outside my own mind - you gave me a counterpoint to everything bad I was saying about myself. In your simple words, I realized that the world was not an echo chamber of my own insecurity.

I say this sincerely, because you changed the trajectory of my life. Like how they say the wings of a butterfly can cause a hurricane across the ocean, you saying a kind thing turned me into a writer again. You gave this little insecure girl a new perspective, one that was outside her own head. One that said her writing was worth something.

And so, thank you.

By taking the moment to tell a 17-year-old that she did something special, you steered her back into the arms of the thing she loves. And even 10 years later, she still thinks about you.