A month ago, I was desperate to find my way back to writing. Not just the act of putting words on a page, but the feeling of it—the unfiltered, soul-deep expression that once felt like second nature. I wanted to tell stories, to craft worlds, and to let my words breathe life into thoughts that had long been trapped in the quiet corners of my mind. I longed to feel that rush, that uncontainable urgency to capture life in ink. So, I dived in. The thrill felt like a long-lost companion finally finding its way home.
But something had shifted. The stories I told no longer felt like mine. The words felt rehearsed, cautious, stripped of their rawness so they could fit within the expectations I wasn’t even sure who had set.
A week ago, I found myself questioning if I still wanted to be a writer. Somewhere along the way, I had softened my edges, diluted my voice, stripped my words of their rawness to make them easier to digest, washed down the taste of my syllables to make them more palatable, more agreeable. I had begun writing for the echo of validation rather than the resonance of truth. It wasn’t a deception, but it felt like confinement—a self-imposed restraint that kept me from sharing the raw, unfiltered essence of my mind. I was burying my own voice under layers of expectation, silencing the echoes of my soul.
Maybe it was the weight of becoming. I realized I was no longer sure what my truth entailed anymore. The lines had blurred in my relentless pursuit of becoming something, someone. I have spent so long trying to live up to the version of myself that I once set out to be—the girl who was sure, who had a clear path, who carried her ambition like armor. And yet, I don’t know who that girl is anymore. Or maybe I never did. Maybe I have been performing for an audience that doesn’t even exist, measuring myself against a standard that only I am holding over my own head. And it is exhausting.
Maybe, though, this was never just about writing. Maybe it was about me. About the way I have been trying to define myself in neat little boxes, when in reality, I am made of contradictions, of shifting tides, of light and darkness interwoven. I have been told I couldn’t be everything at once, that I couldn’t embody contradictions, couldn’t live in the duality of opposing personas. but what if I that’s what I am meant to? What if I am meant to embrace it all—the paradoxes, the chaos, the depth? So, here I am, trying to redefine what that means for me.
The beauty of growth is that it isn’t linear. Identities evolve, perspectives shift, and passions rekindle in unexpected ways. Growth is not a straight path; it is a storm, a dance, a breaking and a becoming. Perhaps the writer I was before had to dissolve so that I could reconstruct myself into something new, something truer, something freer. Maybe I don’t have to choose between being one thing or another-I just have to allow myself to exist as I am, in all my complexity.
So, I write. Not for approval. Not for expectation. But for me. For you. For the boundless, ever-shifting, deeply human experience of expression. I write because stories matter. Because our human experiences, though unique, are woven from the same aching, yearning, loving threads. Because we deserve to be heard, to be understood, to be seen in the fullness of who we are. I write because it is my way of reaching out, of whispering to another soul, “You are not alone.” Sometimes, that other soul is me.
And that, I believe, is enough.
.Mpho
Dorky Perky Writes 