Life is but a dream

I signed up for a spoken word course thinking I’d learn more about poetry. Instead, I learned more about myself.

For twelve Sundays, from morning till evening, I sat with eleven strangers who slowly became companions. We wrote. We listened. We shared. Sometimes we laughed, sometimes we cried. But most of all, we showed up. And that turned out to be the hardest, and most important, part.

I’m a pleaser by nature. Taking up space doesn’t come easy to me. Being away every Sunday felt like a stretch. But the things that stretch you are usually the ones that matter most.

Over those weeks I grew — as a writer, yes, but also as a person. I performed live, twice, in front of forty people. I was nervous. I was strong. Both at once. That’s what a true performance feels like.

Before, I tried to write beautiful things. Now I understand: words only become beautiful when they’re personal. That lesson is woven into Row Row Row Your Boat, the poem I performed at the end of the course. In that moment, I wasn’t trying to impress. I was simply expressing something worth sharing.

I don’t know yet where this road leads. But maybe that’s the whole point. If you already know the ending, it’s not really a journey.

For now, I’ll keep rowing.