The first time I wrote a piece with more than ten sentences, I was nine years old.
My aunt was coming from the Netherlands to visit the family in Suriname. I would see her for the first time and I was very excited about that.
'What would she look like?', I kept asking myself.
It took a while, but there she came. I liked her right away! And I believe she liked me too. Her vacation was over very quickly and because social media did not exist then, she promised to write me letters from the Netherlands. And so she did.
In one of the last letters she wrote me, she told me that her mother was coming to Suriname. She wanted to send me a present and asked me what I would like. After much consideration, I decided to ask her for a diary with a lock. And I got one. A light blue book with a thick cover and a small lock. I used to hide the key very carefully. In this diary I wrote down my first texts: mostly everyday things.
Because I was bullied very much at school, this diary became more and more my best friend. Every time I got emotional and sat with something I couldn't share with another person, I picked up a pen and my diary.
Years flew by. I was about 13 years old when one afternoon I was reading the diary and at one point began to cry, as terrible memories surfaced. My sadness made me realize that I was weak. And in that weak moment that realization infuriated me. I looked at the diary, picked it up and walked out of the house.
My mother had started a fire behind our house where she was burning leaves. I walked straight to the fire, threw my diary into it and then started crying out loud. It felt like watching all the bullies burn. And that felt good.
Five seconds after the little book was completely burned, I regretted it. I thought about my aunt who had lovingly given me the diary as a gift and felt bad that she had put so much effort into something that ended up being in a fire. But I still hoped somewhere that one day I could explain to her that burning the diary was a big step toward pushing my bullies to the ground.
Little did I know then that the diary had taken me into another world: a writer's world.
A world I could run to when I couldn't share emotions with other people but could share them with a piece of paper. Then it also took me a while to share the pieces of paper with other people.
Motivation from friends, acquaintances and family kept pushing me to write more and more. And very often I would hear, 'Write a book!'
Very soon my world would consist more of writing. A world where I could lose myself in, where I could make my dreams come true and where I could start motivating others. My world: a beautiful world.💙
Thank you for reading my stuff. And for supporting me. 💙
