A way to return.

Photo by Daria Kraplak on Unsplash

Free to Be began as a yes to the little girl inside of me who knew she was a writer. Adult me needed to stand up and ‘do the thing’ the quiet voice of my soul had been asking of me since those early years alone in my bedroom. The little girl in me heard that voice then, and I have been hearing it ever since.

Books captivated me from the beginning. Every one of them made me want to write. Even the Britannica Encyclopaedias my parents bought at the annual Newcastle Show became a source of inspiration. I would spend hours reading those large books. The paper felt especially thin and fragile, and somehow sacred. I loved, and still love, all kinds of writing: poetry, fiction, nonfiction. Mostly, I read self help and spirituality books. I dreamed, and still dream, of being a writer who writes books that help people feel seen, heard, and understood. Books that invite new perspectives. Books that bring words to life.

In many ways, I already consider myself a writer. I have been writing in journals since I was six or seven years old. I wish I still had those journals so I could read the words that came through me back then.

But I do not have them.

They were discarded, along with most of my childhood belongings, when I moved to The Netherlands at nineteen. I returned home to find my room had been emptied without my permission. Most of what had been mine was donated or thrown out.

As I write this, I realise this is the first time I have truly acknowledged how deeply that affected me.

I need to pause here.

There is anger in me. Hurt. Sadness. A deep sense of disrespect. Something in that experience still lives in my body.

I took time away from this piece and sat with what was rising.

What came with that pause was this:

When I returned home, that was also the time I stopped writing.

That feels important.

Not because it explains everything, but because it gives context to something I had not fully seen before. Something in me was affected more deeply than I had let myself know. Something in me may have learned that what was precious could be lost. That what was mine could be handled without care. That expression itself did not feel entirely safe.

I came back to journalling a few years later as a university student, a married woman, and a mum. But I returned to it most deeply when my son was diagnosed with cancer. I wrote then to document what was happening and to survive the devastation of watching my little baby fight to live.

Lately, I have been thinking about what it means to be a writer. I know now that, for me, writing is not about applause, permission, or approval. It is not even only about being read. Writing is one of the ways I return to myself.

I write because my voice needs somewhere to go.

I write because something in me becomes more honest when I do.

I write because when I do not, I feel the absence of it. I feel lost, as though a part of me has gone missing. I feel a void deep inside.

Writing feels like home to me. It feels like I can breathe there.

Writing gives me a way to return. A way to listen. A way to let what is true move. Not to force it. Not to perform it. Not to prove it.

Just to let it live.

So I choose to write. Not later. Not when I have done it perfectly. Not when I feel more ready.

Now.

To let writing be part of how I live. To honour the part of me that has always known this. To stop postponing what feels most true.

Free to Be.