The White Hat Journal

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to read. Bedtime stories of Four Fat Rats and hungry caterpillars with their beautiful photographs were enough of a bribe to welcome bedtime. Pillow forts and castles in the sky always included her little box of books with lions and wardrobes, a mouse and a motorcycle. As she started getting bigger, Indians came alive inside of cupboards and small human-like creatures lived in places with mystical names like “The Shire.”

She tried her hand at writing, but typically only when a creative assignment was due. She struggled to come up with the stories, preferring to read about the new lands that others created instead of inventing her own. When the time came for book reports and analyzing literature, she found it tedious and insulting, tearing apart someone’s wondrous creation instead of swimming in the lore and imagination of it all.

Then came the teenage years of high school, where being a bookworm made you far from popular during a time challenging enough due to hormones, a new school, and learning to drive. Books collected dust because who had the time to read outside of the assignments already given? Never skipping a chapter, never skirting a worksheet, and curfew was earlier than most.

As her twelve years of school came to a close, research papers and writing poetry, even the occasional online journal took up her time, but it’s dangerous to let people know what goes on inside your head at an age where everyone is still so fragile and new.

College was supposed to be a new adventure, but reading turned into five pound textbooks with little imagination at all. What she did discover however, was her incredible skill at research and writing, acing everything she gave ample time to. She had yet to fully enjoy this new trait, but amidst her now complicated land of self-discovery and love, was the comforting feeling that her stringing-words-together-ability was far from average.

Moving out and moving on, to one state and then another, books stayed in boxes, half empty journals on shelves, and a with laptop in hand, she tested her hand at different mediums. Yet she always came back to her own life’s story, her strong desire to share it with the world.

It’s morphed over the years, and I’m sure will continue to do so for hopefully decades to come: my reading, my writing, my learning, and this adventure. Today marks a year since I was bold enough to start up this little piece I could own in the universe. Thank you to anyone taking a few moments from their own day to read about mine.