I am not a writer

In grade seven, our class was given an assignment: Write a real or fictional short story about your family.

It was the only thing I remember writing as a child. I wrote a fictional story about a pet monkey. The monkey was a pest and eventually his undoing was messing with mom's supper. My parents told me they brought him to the zoo, where he could be comfortable doing monkey things. The story ends with a family meal. The steak, was the best meat I had ever tasted. It must've been the hint of banana mom put in the pan.

I never wrote anything again. No love letters. No songs. No poems. Nothing. Until 2014.

"I am not a writer", said a good friend.

What is a writer? Does not the ability to string words together to make sentences and then mesh thoughts to make essays or in today's lingo, blogs, constitute a writer.

For if I have written something, then I am writer.

The rules of writing are constantly changing. What was wrong in the 80's is being done by exceptionally gifted writers. Having a run on sentence is ok today. Making up words is acceptable now.

There was a time when a word wasn't a word until its own line in the Webster's Dictionary. Yet Dr. Seuss would make up words in every one of his books. And the educational system would sell us those books promoting them as works of art.

I write because I need to get stuff out of my head.
I write because I notice the small things more often.
I write because it makes me feel good.
I write to observe.
I write to understand.
I write to grow as a human.