I’ve had a complicated relationship with writing. When I was really young, like age 9 – 11, I wrote creatively, and people who read it just loved it. It was the usual kid stuff – enchanted forests with talking animals, runaway orphans having adventures, stuff like that. This was in the 80’s, and my parents kicked down an ancient typewriter for me to use. There came a time when I wanted a word processor more than anything (yes Virginia, there was a machine between typewriters and computers called a “word processor”). Nobody made me write, and I didn’t do it for school assignments – I just did it because I loved it, because I had a story I wanted to tell. But then I entered the crucible of junior high, and lost my confidence and will to write, along with all of my self-esteem and the will to live. 

By high school, I avoided writing like I owed it money. I procrastinated on every paper and writing assignment. I could usually pull it off with an all-nighter, but I knew what I produced wasn’t nearly the quality I would have been capable of, if I hadn’t put off the assignment. I remember on several occasions trying to type my papers between classes and at lunch, hauling a 20-pound typewriter around all over campus (yep, same typewriter). You don’t know how good you have it, kids, with your laptops and tablets. 

In college, this pattern of procrastination continued. I majored in English because of a love of reading, not a love of writing. But I developed more of a real relationship to academic writing – I could actually notice the thought process behind my writing. I had several experiences where the process of writing led to genuine insight into the material. I would start a paper with no direction at all, and come out with an actual idea. But again, I was still hammering out papers by pulling all-nighters, not putting my best thought and work into it. I actually got a job as a tutor in the campus Writing Center (a job I almost didn’t get because I admitted my writing process was to vomit a whole paper out the night before it was due). In that job, I got my first exposure to composition theory, and was introduced to Peter Elbow and freewriting. 

Then in grad school, I discovered rhetoric and composition as an academic discipline. A whole field dedicated to the study of why Stef hates to write so much! I threw myself into it with the vigor of a mentally ill student studying psychology for the first time. For someone who had always been praised as a good writer, why did I resist it so much? There are a lot of other compelling questions in the field, such as how writing has been used to reproduce inequities in educational institutions, but my exploration started with the self-interested question of, “What the hell is wrong with me?” As Dan Harris says, my research was Me-Search. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to pursue a degree that required me to produce a 100-page thesis – I have dissociative amnesia about this experience (but it did get done…barely, and poorly). 

Mildly traumatized by the composition theory, esoteric reading, and thesis grad school required, I retreated fully from anything requiring brain power for years after I graduated. I knocked around doing customer service work for about a decade (it was fun, and involved a lot of drugs and alcohol, which I’ve written about a lot) – I didn’t even read novels for pleasure until years after leaving school. When I did return to the professional world, it was in a job that required – guess what – lots of writing. My procrastination patterns continued, but this time my slapdash process had existential impact – turning in an assignment late meant my livelihood was on the line. So I ran from that work too, into a job that only occasionally involved writing. 

But then a couple of things happened at about the same time – I started meditating, and I started trying to quit drinking. In deciding how I would engage in self-exploration in my recovery efforts, I decided to write. And I discovered again and again what I had known since I was 18 – I would sit down with only a problem, and would write myself to some answers. It didn’t happen every time, but it happened regularly enough that it was obvious there was a lot to be gained by just trying to put words to ideas. I would sit down to write, and be smarter 10 minutes later. 

I write a lot about how meditation helped me beat depression. Buoyed by my newfound peace, I started looking for other work. In an act of unbridled hubris and lack of personal insight, I took on a job that literally had “writer” in the title. I didn’t seek out writing jobs, but I did have unique qualifications for this one. I basically stumbled into it. Yes, now I was a professional writer. But it was different now. In the face of unyielding deadlines, there could be no such thing as procrastination. I was producing 70+ page projects a couple of times a week. But my team loved my writing. And my recovery writing continued to be satisfying too. Writing, which had bedeviled me my whole life, was filling up my personal and professional worlds with meaning.

And then, with meditation and dramatic weight loss and recovery and mental health, I started feeling like I had a story to tell again. Like I did at age 11, I wrote because there was something to express – not because I had an assignment, not because my boss needed it, but because I needed it. In addition to my day job, I started a blog, and now I write 7 days a week (some weeks), from the wee small hours of the morning until evening.

Writing for a living was the answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking. Have you heard the question about, “What would your 10-year-old self think about the person you are now?” Three years ago, that kid would have been confused and disappointed. Now, I think she would say we’re exactly where we should be. Writing, bringing other people into our mind. Inspired by exciting professional work and a passion project. Writing to make meaning. The life I am living now has pulled together all the threads from my life – writing as a child, my study in grad school – they were huge facets of my life, and they seemed to lead nowhere for a lot of years. Now, it’s like I’ve come full circle. The writing life is what it was all for. 

And so here I am, writing this essay that you’re reading – am I coming out of it with more insight than when I went in? What does this history of my relationship with writing have to do with you, the reader? There are two things I hope my story demonstrates: 

1. Be open to closing the loop of your life. What were your childhood passions? What question have you been trying to solve your whole life? You don’t have to make it your paid work, but reconnecting with how you used to put a message out into the world draws a bright line from your early years into adulthood. 
2. And yes, this line can even include defeating your demons. Maybe you’ve developed a difficult relationship with your art, or your poetry, or your code. You may think there’s no repairing the relationship. You’re not the same person you were when the demons defeated you before. Keep revisiting your creativity. You never know when you might discover a totally different relationship to your art. 

Like writing, life is a recursive process. It’s never too late to make your 10-year-old self proud. For me, returning to writing made my whole life make sense. If you had asked me at 24, or 34, or even 40 whether I would write for a living, cheerfully, then write mountains of essays, voluntarily, I would have said you had mistaken me for someone else. Yep, I was someone else. Maybe you are too.