Ever since I can remember, I have loved to write. Oddly though, ever since I can remember, I have taken every opportunity to avoid pursuing this passion. It is a paradox difficult to explain, and, until now, I have purposefully evaded attempting to expose the truth behind this curious relationship of passion and avoidance.

My first inclination is to claim I was obstructed by the tributaries of life, which is true to a certain extent, but is that really the ultimate truth? Life only got in the way because I let it. I was too passive and there will always be a life excuse for anyone who wants to find one. School . . . family . . . job . . . health? These all consumed significant portions of any given capsule of my life, but they are convenient excuses.

As I force myself to dig deeper, shavings of truth begin to surface.

I have always possessed a multitude of ideas about which to write but could never focus on any singular path. There have been days I want to write about baseball. Other days I wanted to write about personal life experiences. Other days, I wanted to write comedically. Despite these ideas and desires, I have felt like someone with a full tank of gas ready for a trip to commence, but who never actually leaves because I could not decide where to go.

But this impediment can be diminished with this forum; it is a writing canvas with no restrictions. If the day presents me with an incredible personal experience, I can share this experience. If the day presents me with a comical occurrence, I can share this occurrence. I have thought about the freeing reality of a blog for a while, so the restrictive, singular excuse can essentially be mitigated.

But as I dig even further, I discover what feels closer to the core truth.

While the above reasons have substance, I think the true reason is because I have always been afraid of writing – not the act itself, but how others would view my writing and the sentiments expressed therein. There is a distinct vulnerability linked with the permanence of exposing thoughts in writing. I have spent my life as an unquestioned introvert. There are roles I undertake that force me to be extraverted, whether that be captaining a softball team or working in management, but introversion is my core. To sit in a quiet room by myself and write, my introverted self is satisfied because I am in a safe place.

Consequently, lots of people in my past would say I am quiet, and there is truth to this. I am generally reserved until I feel comfortable with a specific situation or individual. How long it takes me to feel comfortable can vary. I sat beside my future wife as freshmen in high school history and never said a word to her. Fast forward to our senior year and I sat directly in front of her in statistics and still never shared a single word with her. She did not know a single thing about me other than I was quiet. Which is an anecdotal manner of expressing that people can think different things about a person, but ultimately they do not really know until they have substantiation.

So people think I am quiet, or think I am shy, or think I am funny, or think I am a good writer, but they are just thoughts. Once I actually share my writing, they are no longer uninformed or baseless thoughts – they are now substantiated by reality, and that scares me.

What else scares me? Bluntly, what if I am not that good of a writer? It has been a peripheral identity of mine for a long time. Michael is a good writer. I have always thought I was a good writer, but upon what do I tangibly base that belief?

There have been some positive queues scattered throughout my life.

My senior year of high school, we had to draft opening lines to a writing assignment and anonymously pass them around the classroom for everyone to read. I took a creative approach, crafting one line in particular that was intended to be humorous. As the papers were passed around the quiet room, I heard people laugh out loud at the line, providing me with a satisfying vindication of my intention. As we were leaving class, a girl with whom I had little interaction came up to me, unprompted, and told me how creative I was. It was a brief but rewarding exchange that I vividly remember.

As an English major in college, I had to write a lengthy critical analysis in what essentially amounted to a final project before graduating. For the assignment, I juxtaposed critical reviews of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer pre-and-post-Vietnam War. When I received the paper back, the professor informed me it was the best paper she ever read.

Those are the positives, and I try to focus on those confidence boosters. But there are many negatives, all prominently present in my mind, perhaps stronger than the positives.

My sophomore year of high school, I had an English teacher with a Ph.D. At the time, I viewed it as a gauge of my writing ability to have a highly educated individual evaluating my work, but I never got a single A on a writing assignment all year.

While in law school, I wrote an article for law review and I had a professor criticize it in every way possible, telling me she did not understand my premise, it did not advance a legal theory, and my writing style was confusing to read.

So, which is the truth? The girl in high school English class and my English professor in college, or my sophomore high school teacher and law professor? Or maybe even more accurately, it is somewhere in the middle, leaving me as simply average, and no one wants to read an average writer’s work.

But as life has progressed, it has become apparent that there is one person for whom I ultimately need to write: myself. I need to take this chance. I need to feel vulnerable. I need it for cathartics. It is an outlet I need to explore instead of keeping ideas, emotions, and passions to myself. If you keep enough inside, it ultimately fights its way out in some form whether you want it to or not, which is why I am finally taking the initiative to dictate how my emotions are expressed. If I want to write about baseball, comedy, tragedy, or emotions, this outlet will allow me the diversity and freedom to do so. What I have found is that when someone shares personal stories or emotions, it knocks down the barrier and others reciprocate, all essential for personal growth. So these will be my stories, experiences, and emotions, both for myself and for others.