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Writing has been a passion of mine since I was little little! I always had a stack of white paper and a plethora of pens and pencils of all colors ready for whatever I wanted to create.
Writing and creating is the only thing that really ever made me happy.
Writing has been an outlet for me since I was as little as 5 years old. Growing up a victim of child sexual abuse, writing was my only outlet; even if I was the only one who read it – besides God of course.
Since the age of 5, I would go into my closet and write every day with a little lamp wrapped around the corner from the outlet.
When I finished writing that night before bed, I would then fold up the paper and hide my writings in a “hole in the wall” I created in the closet in my room behind the clothes where no one could find them.
Writings of wishes, prayers to God, hopes, dreams, photos and pictures that I drew to express emotions and feelings that I was going through; most of the time being sad stories of confusion and pain.
At the age of 18 I stored them in a lock box and today most of them are in a special folder in my therapist office as I have shared these writings with him over the years.
They are right where they belong – a safe place – no longer silenced between walls.
Writing has continued to be a outlet for me in many ways. I always found it easier to express my feelings more so through writing than speaking to others in person. You put me at a table with a bunch of people and I sit and listen, mostly observe. You put me in front of my laptop and a blank canvas, and I could write for days and express the very things I struggle to express in person.
Writing is a way for me to let go of the very things that ponder inside of me. It’s the freedom I never had, and the freedom I have today.
People in my life get frustrated that I never answer my phone when they call, or never pick up the phone to call them, but yet you write me an email and the thoughts and conversation flow so easily. It’s a gift between me and my soul.
Writing is a safe haven for me; a place where I can be as vulnerable as I need to be. I don’t have to be anything but where I am in that very moment without any expectations. Its my place to be however I want to be.
5 years ago (3 years into therapy) I decided to take my writing to a new level and I created a blog as a part of the healing process and to make a connection that I was learning so much about. I decided to share my thoughts instead of keeping them to myself.
I began writing with small thoughts, testing the water of a new kind of vulnerability – things like being a mom to 3 boys and Wisdom that I had learned in some of my therapy sessions. I wrote about thoughts that came to me that day and what my wisdom was around that. I began very slowly as it was a new thing for me to put my thoughts out there to be seen.
It wasn’t until 2012, that I began really testing the waters of my vulnerability through my writing. I began writing more in detail about the process and healing I was going through in therapy and the hardness and emotions in that. It became a part of the work in healing the wounds from my painful past.
The more I wrote, the more connections I was making with others; others who were going through some of the same things I was going through and realizing just how “not alone” I was in this.
But then there was a blessing and a curse to that vulnerability as well.
My blog went through many painful unfortunate events over the past 2 1/2 years; a story too long to tell in itself. But even in the midst of the pain that my writing brought on; it didn’t stop me from the vulnerability and truth I brought to the table and the connections I made along the way.
That was the soul purpose of my writing – to write no matter what pain it brings on, because in that pain also brings joy and the ability to no longer hide behind a hole in the wall.
That’s what writing is all about .. it’s about being vulnerable no matter what it brings, because in that vulnerability sheds a voice that was silenced for so many years, and in that is healing.
This is who I am … I am Karen – a child of God – a mom – a wife – a friend – a survivor of a horrible past that never lets anything bring her down without a fight.
I love to write, and writing is what defines me and heals me.
I am working on a book, and hopefully someday I will be able to share that with the world…… but until then, writing is what I do; a gift from God that I intend to embrace through connection not only to others- but to myself.
My Mantra to writing has always been this:
“I am on a Journey….
with my work, my explorations, and a few sad stories.
I travel with a suitcase full of outrageous blessings.
I am on a quest for truth, beauty and quiet joy.
I am an artist, a writer, an explorer.”