Paper.

My mother hated paper around the house. It didn’t matter if it was used or brand new, if paper was lying around, it needed to be thrown away. I, on the other hand, loved it. I filled notebook after notebook with stories, outlines, poems, and ideas. Any creative spark in my head landed on a sheet of paper. When COVID-19 forced everyone indoors, I found myself turning even more to writing. In just six months, I filled twelve notebooks with my first script. Torn pages piled in the corner of my room, my personal creative storm until my mom yelled at me to throw it all away. But something shifted when I shared the story I had written. For the first time, she understood why paper mattered so much to me.

That moment shaped who I am today and why I still write in a storybook journal. Paper is something I share with the literary greats and historians alike. The stories of Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Frank, and Stephen King endure because they were written down. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher told me I was one of her best writers and even saved my worksheets. I didn’t realize it then, but my relationship with writing and my view of myself as a storyteller began to form.

That perspective deepened when I studied abroad in Sydney, Australia, a city layered in history and culture. I carried a notebook everywhere, documenting what I learned, what I saw, and how I felt. I was immersed in a place so different from home, yet I found myself connected to it through words. Today, I still draft stories on my computer once I know where they're headed, but my roots are on paper. I carry a notebook with me at all times because once the ink sets in, the idea lives forever. My love for paper, born in resistance and refined through experience, has become a vessel for my imagination, identity, and storytelling.