I’ve been a storyteller, albeit not by that name, since I was about 6 years old. I had started school and hated it, so making me walk the long deserted road to the bus stop was probably quite a challenge for my mother.
We lived close to the sea on a wonderful, small island, in a small house surrounded by fields and woods and sand dunes and of course – the beautiful dark ocean. It was way more fun climbing trees and riding horses and building secret hideouts in the bushes than it was going to school. I was bullied. I was an easy target, a half Arab and half white kid in a predominantly white area, and even though I had not been diagnosed with ASD yet, it was clear to all the other kids that something wasn’t right with me.
I didn’t do well in school either and homework was even worse. Homework made me feel like I couldn’t even get a break from my daily hell at home.
So, lots of reasons not to go. I did go, though, because my mother would make up stories for me all the way from our house to the bus stop. Those stories were the best and most magical time of my day and soon I would change the stories in my head when I was alone on the bus – perhaps my mother hadn’t clearly understood how the story should have ended or it had simply been too short and needed to be extended.Â
Then, later on, I would make up my own stories in my head while hiding in the dark corners of the school yard. When I did, I would almost forget why and who I was hiding from.
When I learned how to read, it was because I wanted to read books.
When I learned to write, it was because I wanted to write my stories down.
My stories were my safe haven in a dark and scary world.
I have two female cousins I played with a lot as a child. I have other cousins too, of course, but these two girls were especially important to me – in some ways they always will be.
When we played they let me make up the stories and what’s even crazier, they seemed to love my stories. They were my first audience, the first people in my life I wanted to dazzle with great adventures and magic and horror. They were my first actors, the first people I created characters and stories especially for. They were my first team, the first and so far, only people who wanted to create a different world with me. They were everything to me when I was a child.
Now, I barely see them.
They grew up and became adults like all children do. They grew out of playing with me, they stopped listening to my stories. Life is like that. I too grew into an adult and somehow became afraid to share my stories like I used to do so freely and happily as a child.
They don’t read my blog, even though a part of me always wanted those two girls to always be my first readers.
You see, I feel like as a writer the story I tell is really only my own while I am writing it. When someone reads my words, when you read this, it becomes yours. How you interpret my story is your choice and that is exactly as it should be. You give life to my stories – my words – not the other way around.
Thank you for giving life to these words. Thank you for reading.
For a very long time I have longed to return to the feeling I had as a child. The freedom and pure joy of sharing my stories fearlessly with the world. It may sound strange to you, but even though I always continued to make up stories and write, I forgot that feeling at some point.
It’s easy to blame it on all the bad experiences in my life and traumas, but I don’t think it would be right to do so. I think, I chose to forget because I was too afraid. I wasn’t afraid of how people would react or anything like that. I was afraid I would lose the happiness I found in it, and it is the one thing I cannot bear to live without.
Isn’t it funny and sad all at the same time? By suppressing that side of me I ended up losing the one thing I never wanted to lose.
I want it back, that magical feeling of joy that I get from sharing my stories with the world.
But… I don’t know how to do that fearlessly anymore because I am anything but fearless. I am terrified.
I am terrified because I can barely recognise my own voice now. Lately, I’ve started writing fiction again. It’s not structured and I barely have any time in my everyday life, so I find myself writing all these little notes on random pieces of paper, on napkins, on my mobile or on whatever is near me when I get something – an idea, a thought, a sentence, a feeling – that I need to remember.
I wish I had more time. I wish I wasn’t still so tired after covid. I wish I was better at my job so that I wouldn’t need to worry so much. I wish I had friends who encourage and enjoy my writing. I wish my two cousins would still want to hear my stories.
I don’t usually have a lot wishes and to be fair, if someone gave me a genie with three wishes, I probably wouldn’t use them.
Because all of the things I want – well, no not all of them, I guess. Some of the things I want are easily obtained. I always have more time, as long as I am alive and if I’m not, finding time for writing stories has to be the least of my worries. I am tired all the time and I have been since covid, but I’ll get better. I know I will. Every day I try to get better and do better at work, so one day, I surely will. All these worries, they are not important.
Whether I will ever have friends who encourage and enjoy my writing is not something I will never want to control, just like I have no need to make anyone in my family read what I write if they do not wish to do so.
So, did you realise what all this is?
You probably did.
Excuses, that’s all it is. Excuses.
In spite of everything above, just writing a few lines on a random piece of paper is writing. It’s a start and right now, it’s all I need.
I don’t need to have written, I need to write.
It may take me years to write anything real again, it may take me weeks – it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am searching for the fearless joy of writing and sharing my stories again. My voice is changing, but that should not be surprising. I am not the person who wrote stories in her head while hiding from bullies in the school yard, nor am I the little girl making stories for her cousins to play.
I remember the first time I started limiting myself. I read part of a story I’d written for some of my family members – those two cousins included – and they didn’t like it. My cousins were already too old for magic stories and I think the others only listened because they felt they had to. None of them remember that day today, but I do. I remember how much that mattered to me, and how little it mattered to any of them. Yes, you might say the quality of my story was bound to have been lacking, since it was rather early in my life of writing, but it broke my heart that they didn’t even care enough to really listen.
Of course, my mother was always supportive – she never fails to be like an angel. She has always listened to my stories and helped me improve my writing simply by always happily reading whatever I ask her to read.
Recently, I’ve been thinking that it’s time. It’s time to figure out what kind of stories I want to write, what kind of voice have I grown into and what kind of readers will meet in the future? What do I have to give?
So, again. Thank you for giving life to words, thank you for sharing these moments with me and I hope to share many more with you in our future.
