A WRITER IN THE MAKING-Road to discovery.

Fitting in for me has always been a challenge, either that or my team picking ability is just messed up big time. Hobbies, I have quite a number, but then again, I still cannot  find out which is more pronounced in my life.

Take for instance my fifth year in primary school, I had a passion for traditional dancing. I did it so gracefully and skillfully- so I thought- but like I said, my messed up team picking ability landed me in the wrong dance team. So while I sweated it out behind the classes with a bossy know-it-all slender chick for a tutor, the real dance team was training in the dining hall.

I eventually found out when reading a paper in the library that the competitions were way past the provincial level. The only competition my infamous dance team would go to was…well, never! I was heart broken.

Then come high school, same old story, well, may be this one has a little twist, but still, wrong team! Only that this team had only two ‘dancers’ whose dancing was with words on pages. I know you are thinking I was a bookworm genius, well you are right if you are thinking Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel, Lisa Jackson and may be pacesetters…I was into novels!

My dance partner was just showing me the vast collection in the somewhat equipped library while two meters away in the dinning hall the dance audition were going on. So I missed the spot at the dance team…again!

Then I come to university, I joined the drama club, got a first runner up best actress and men! I was on top of the world(okay most of the time) I had my fun while it lasted, then… I grew up! (no offence but drama club was full of drama)

Then I realized, at 22, I still hadn't figured out what I was good at, I always thought dancing was my thing but we all know how that turned out, drama, I was just okay, but okay is not good enough, drawing, I only drew cartoons, actually I draw cartoons other people have already drawn, singing, I still cant figure out if I sing tenor, alto or both.

I simply suck at anything I ever tried to do! Even talking, and by the way I talk a lot!. Then I joined Christian union, and my life took  an  unexpected twist. For the one and a half year or so, I felt like I was living a dream, for the first time I felt no pressure of fitting in or standing out or even competing.

I was living with people who never judged, ridicule or despise. They genuinely loved me for me. I was living the moment… and then the moment ended with a full stop on my last paper. Good bye was in order. Soon enough I had other things to worry about, salary, bills, family… tough responsibilities and the safe haven I knew(well am glad it’s still comforting many others who were just like me, confused, hopeless and lonely)no longer felt like home.

I learnt a lot from the Christian union, but there was still a void I never fully understood. I was this person hiding in me and I could not seem to be able to get me out of me until one boring afternoon I started going through my diaries and notebooks( I have lots of these by the way)then it hit me!

Of course, all my life I was doing the one thing that I was looking forward to doing without realizing I was doing it! I was a natural. I played around with words so sweetly and exemplary  with so much ease, like I was born to do it.( actually I was)

All the books I had read, all the stories I related to, and boy oh boy, the poems I had composed during my ‘low moments’ which now I realize were my ‘high moments’. By God! I was a talented poet, and story teller! I have a special connection with the English language and once I start, I just want to go on and on till it’s out there. Capturing feeling and emotions with words, leaving out no detail!

For 23 years, I was living my dream life with a strong talent and hobby not even realizing it. The little things like being a best student in English in both primary and high school, the many times I stayed up late reading a novel, the scribbling I did whenever I got pen and paper. The very little things I thought useless, are the very things that define me, a writer in the making!