I write, therefore I am.

Writing has always been an outlet for me.

I usually write in cheap paper notebooks which I stash underneath my mattress and then throw away.

I've seen it as something private, akin to clipping my nails and brushing my teeth. Human and necessary, but ugly nevertheless.

In the last couple of years, I've come to realize that there's nothing as cathartic and as liberating as writing to another human being. Because if a bird chirps in a forest and nobody hears it, has the bird really chirped?

So I started with writing a lot of letters and texts to friends. But there's a limit to how many mini-essays, letters, and texts friends want to read. Protests were made.

So I went back to stashing my writing under my mattress.

Until my therapist asked me why I didn't publish my work.

She made quite the radical argument. Writing does not have to be beautiful to exist in public.

And as long as I'm not violently shoving my writing in people's mailboxes or at them in the name of feeling heard, it's all good.

Happiness and catharsis, over beautifully curated sentences.

I write, therefore I am. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.