I was in third grade. Our teacher had a bob and she was kind. She gave each of us a journal, sheets of computer paper bound together by staples. She taught us that writing could as simple as writing down what happened to you that day to big, bombastic stories β real epics.
She carved out time throughout the week for us to write. This continued on for maybe a month. I loved it. Stories about monkeys fighting airplanes were interspersed with details about the bugs I collected at recess. Any bit of free time I had was dedicated to writing, both in school and out.
Within a couple weeks, the journal was filled. Probably bad writing, yeah, but it was mine nonetheless.
Fast forward a couple months. Third grade ends. Summer begins. I look for my journal. I canβt find it. I ask my mother where it is. She said she threw it away. I cry. She feels guilty. We never talk about it.
Itβs maybe my first experience with grief. I felt legitimately connected to the experience of writing, and to experience actual loss, especially at that young of an age, changed my brain forever. Twenty years later, I write editorial articles at work and poetry at home. I still have a very tenuous relationship with the void lol.