Letting It Out: Scribbles, Red Ink, and the Big "Fuck It"

Every morning, it's like I'm reborn or something.

I sit down, and whatever's bouncing around in my skull starts to spill out on the page. Joy, stress, the weird, the mundane—it's all fair game. Sometimes journaling is my way of pulling these somewhat random thoughts from the ether into something kinda, sorta tangible. It's like magic, but the kind you make up as you go along, not like the Hogwarts kind unfortunately.

But here's the tea:

As much as writing feels like my own little act of creation, it's also like picking at an old scab. Back in school, every English paper I got back looked like it had been in a fight with a red pen—and lost. Typos, run-ons, the works. Those papers made me feel like a real dud, like maybe I was in over my head in those honors classes.

The weird thing is, I didn't even want to be in those fancy classes.

I was more of a "general education" kinda guy. But try telling that to my guidance counselor. She thought I was selling myself short. "It's your ticket to a good college," she said. College? I hadn't even thought that far. Just the thought of college application essays and their fees gave me anxiety.

Anyway, I'm rambling...

Maybe I'm just a sucker for a bit of nostalgia—or maybe I'm trying to stare down the ghosts of English classes past. The point is, even with all those insecurities nagging at me, I keep showing up to the page. Somewhere deep down, I've got this stubborn streak that whispers, "You're smart enough for this."

Back in high school, I was that kid who didn't have an impressive college acceptance letter to flaunt. Sitting among the brainiacs, I felt like a total impostor. But here's the kicker: now, when I catch a glimpse of myself, I can sometimes see what others saw in me.

My smarts are perhaps not in acing tests or fancy essays. My smarts are more experiential. A practical, lived-it kind of smart.

And here's the thing about writing: it doesn't have to be this polished, pretentious thing. For me, it's about dumping your brain on the page and being real with your Self.

It's about saying "fuck it" to the rules.

You know, society's always trying to shove us into neat little boxes, telling us how we should talk, think, and write. But life's too wild and precious for that. There's a bazillion ways to live it, and just as many ways to talk about it.

Yes, I am an artist!

That meant having to grapple with all those demons from yesteryear, all that social conditioning, and just letting my mind run rampant.

So, if there's one person out there thinking they have to write a certain way or be a certain way to be heard in the world, here's a little wisdom from one who's been there: do you. It's going to be messy and scary and totally invigorating. But the more you let go and just do the damn thing, the more you're rewriting the stale, old scripts they handed us.

Color me crazy baby!                                                                                                         Daníel Colón