I'm Here to Tell My Stories

I’m Sahara (like the desert, or the Jeep), last name: Snow. I’m a writer.

A writer without readers.

I think it was in high school that I started to doubt my writing. When I was writing essays for English, I would get my older brother and my mum to edit my work for me. You know, for spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, and to make sure I didn’t say something entirely wrong or stupid. The problem was, they wouldn’t just proofread my work, they would completely edit my words. They would rewrite my essay, chipping away at my words until my voice was so quiet it was just a whisper between their well-written sentences. It was no longer my essay, it was their essay with my name at the top. It was like they were saying that they could say it better than I had. Their ideas were better, their points more valid. It was like their voices were more deserving of being heard than mine was.

All through high school, I returned, again and again, putting myself on the chopping block to have my work stripped down and painted into something better than I ever could have done myself. I learned to stay quiet. Why bother trying to be heard when I wasn’t worth hearing? When someone else could say it better than me?

Then, in my last year of high school, I started a Writer’s Craft course. It was a course built for the sole purpose of storytelling. TRUE stories. We were supposed to write what we knew: use prompts to spark a memory from our real lives and then write a story about it. Put that memory on paper and share it for the beautiful truth it was. It was the first time I felt like my voice mattered; like maybe I was worthy of being heard. I dug old forgotten memories out of the boxes in the back of my mind’s attic where they’d been packed away for safekeeping, quiet keeping, and I shared them - with my teacher. He was a wonderful, supportive man with the best laugh and the kindest eyes, and he became the keeper of my stories. I shared them with him, got my mark for the piece, and then tucked that paper version of my truth into a binder where it was again filed away for safekeeping. Quiet keeping.

Alas, my course ended and I graduated high school. As I moved into adulthood, I stopped writing down my stories. I no longer had a safe place to share my truths, so I packed them away in my mind boxes and forgot about them. I fell silent.

Eight years later, I was 26, feeling more lost than I ever had in my life, and the boxes were overflowing. I started writing again. I poured it all out in the pages of journals, in notes on my phone, on my laptop. I shared some of my stories (selectively, with a trusted few), but most were just for me.

After a while, I developed this nagging longing to be heard, to be known. Perhaps it was the isolation that came along with a global pandemic that sparked it, or maybe it was a symptom of the internal work I’d been doing. Whatever it was, I set up an Instagram account under a pen name and started sharing snippets of myself in a bid for connection. It was all well-received (bless you sweet people of the internet for being gentle with my delicate soul), but something didn’t feel right about it. I didn’t feel like I was being heard, and I definitely didn’t feel known. How could I? Nobody knew it was me writing. So I quit. I gave it up because the authenticity was missing from it and it left me feeling just as alone with my thoughts as ever, so why bother?

Fast forward one year, and I suddenly find myself with this grand opportunity: unemployment. With an awful lot of free time on my hands, a lifetime of truths hidden away in mind boxes, and an amazing partner with the tech know-how to help me set up a blog - here we are.

I’m here, I’m writing, and I’m clicking publish. I’m not sure if I’m ready - to be honest, the only thing I’m really sure of is how scared I am, but I’m doing it anyway. It’s time to unpack all those boxes.

I’m here to tell my stories, thank you for hearing them.