I’ve been writing all my life, but it wasn’t until last year that I felt confident calling myself a writer. When I thought about the things I’d written before, from essays for AP Lit classes, scripts for school news shows, and psychology research papers, to notes in church, scribblings in journals, and stories of delusion in my head, none of it ever felt like it counted. The things I wrote for school were too boring and academic, the musings I wrote in my journal couldn’t really count; they were altogether too personal and unorganized. Even when I took forays into creative writing, usually in the form of scripts for my film classes, none of it ever felt good enough. It’s silly how a lot of the time we choose to be our harshest critics.
I didn’t realize it then, but my ideas on my writing began to shift in college. I studied Cinema and Media Arts, my school’s interpretation of a film major, because I wanted to be a television producer. I loved, LOVED, LOVED sitcoms, and at that time, one of my favorites was The Mindy Project (Ms. Kaling has gotten a rise of hate in the recent years, and frankly, that’s not my ministry, I still want the best for her, exclusively casting white men as love interests and all (Maybe my thoughts on this is another blog post in the making because I feel weird leaving that with no nuance)). The Mindy Project was a huge departing from the standard sitcom characters we saw, and I loved that she made that happen. I’d always wanted to enter television because I wanted to see more stories like that, and like my own. Telling my story became my new mission.
When I started thinking about the things I did as sharing my story, they began to hold that much more weight for me. I know that I am only one person, one Briana, born in the Fort Lauderdale to two immigrant parents who moved to Georgia at age ten and Tennessee at age 18 and then Alabama then Texas then halfway across the world. In the grand scheme of things, the people who have lived and died, the nations that have risen and fallen, and all the events that transpired before the Earth even became Earth, I am insignificant. I am a microscopic blip in the timeline. Still, I am the only one who has and will live my exact life; even the many Mes in the multiverses aren’t Briana #1.942805824893472478 (I’m just guessing about my number. Who knows?)
I write because even though I’m the only person who has experienced life as me, I get to live in this moment with billions of people, and each of those people are just like me. We’ve all experienced joy and heartache and sadness. Some of us have experienced throwing up on the side of a bar. Others of us have watched a pink plus sign come into view and rejoiced at the sight, and even others have leaned in for a hug and had someone give them the exact tight squeeze they needed. We have these things that connect us, and they’re meant to be known. I write because I want to know others, and when I scrape back the layers and allow myself a bit of perspective, I desperately want to be known.
Keep writing!