ME, THE UNUSUAL

I used to be a prolific writer in Spanish. I learnt to write at the age of five thanks to my grandma that took the time to teach me. This was for me the most incredible tool because I was shy and writing became my own medium to communicate. I did not speak much but I had so much going on in my own head that pouring it into words, creating sentences, and filling my journals with my stories, became second nature. Definitely I stopped talking. Besides, my mom sort of raised me to be almost like a doll. Wherever place she asked me to sit, I was supposed to stay still and quiet. How did she manage to control me that way? Easy. With fear. I was terrified of my mother; she was a hands-on aggressive person. One simple look of her eyes and you would feel the burning of your insides. Being quiet was my teaching.

Because of me being in long periods of silence it made me somehow inadequate in social terms. Unfortunately, I did not have the counterpart as to see how to balance what I wanted to say and what I had to silence. So, I wrote every day. I read all the encyclopedias we had at home. Since I had to be quiet most of the time, reading became my traveling experience. I used to imagine being in another country and observe everything around me. I used to daydream about becoming a famous writer because after all, it was the only thing I was good at. My first official writing experience was a small poem about love. Very weird, but it was. I might had been around six years old. What did I know about love? Apparently, a lot. I remember my aunt asking me from where I had copied that in my journal…