The Writing Dames

 

Carolína de Ellars, aka AnqeIicDemise ('cause the horns keep the halo on!)

Up until fifth grade, I was a huuuge math nerd. It was all about playing around with numbers, finding new ways to make equations work, etc. Daddy is a mathmatician, a horticultural agronomist, a mechanic, a romantic... a total jack of all trades. He taught me that numbers were fun... except he didn't explain how to *show* my work. So, by the time I was 11, I was having a hard time proving my genius. It didn't help that I was also reserved and didn't have many friends. Expressing myself was something I simply could not do; not with math, not with language.

My teacher at the time, tried to correct this behavior. He got me to sit next to a really outgoing young gal with tons of friends. It wasn't long before I opened up and began to socialize more, laugh more, speak up in class more. Still, I struggled with expression. Its one thing to follow the leader because its easy to follow their shadow and another to step out on your own. And when a few months later, an even shyer, nerdier gal came into class, she was promptly sat between Dizzy and myself. Instantly, she became Bookworm. I helped her with her numbers, she helped me with my English and over all, Dizzy helped us laugh.

Then our rivalries started coming up. Somehow we began to compete with one another, Dizzy, Bookworm and I. Together we became an unit, our personalities complimented one another and next thing I know, we were fighting to be the top student. I never read more books in my life. By the end of the year, Bookworm and I had read over one thousand pages each. She'd devoured Hawaii  and I had read just about every Charles Dickens and Bronte novel (all three sisters) I could lay my hands on.

That's how it started, my passion for language. I could convey a message with the word that I couldn't with the number. By the time I was in seventh grade I had read everything and anything that crossed my path and I decided 'I'm going to be a writer.'

It was this dream that saved my life years later when I tried to end it all.

And it is this dream that keeps me going now, when adult life rears its obnoxious head often enough. See, I'm not *going* to be a writer. I already am. Now is just a matter of actually getting my name out there to get a book published some day.

Oh, and those girls? They're still my sisters. They make wonderful furchildren aunties, those two.