Writing doesn’t come naturally to me. I don’t have ideas. I don’t have inspiration. I don’t even have the overwhelming desire to write. Yet here I am, putting words down—sharing what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling.

I tell myself I’m not a writer. I say this every time I sit down in front of a blank screen. The words don’t come easily, and when they do, they stumble. Every thought feels recycled. Every sentence reminds me of a better one I’ve already read. Everything worth saying has been said and said better by people who actually belong in this world of words. I don’t belong there. I never have.

But I write anyway.

Maybe it’s a compulsion. Perhaps it’s a habit. An addiction I never agreed to. Writing seems less like genuine creation and more like scratching an unrelenting itch. It provides no absolute satisfaction, only a fleeting relief that lasts about five seconds before the itch comes back. Words come out in fragments — broken, uncertain, shaking like unrested hands. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if they make sense. Since it doesn’t, none of it does.

I’ve spent my whole adult life hiding the truth. This isn’t self-pity; it’s just the reality. I’ve been on a path I never chose, playing a role I never auditioned for—engineering student. Logical thinker. Stable adult. These words appear straightforward on paper, resembling a resume of someone confident in their direction. Yet, I was never truly sure. I followed the route given to me, the one others said would be sensible.

Those words look clean on paper, like the résumé of someone who knows where they’re going. But I never knew.

And she said it would make sense. She said it was the wise choice, the safest one. I believed her. I wanted to believe her. My therapist would tell me I made the choice myself, that I’m trying to shift the blame. Maybe he’s right. But I don’t remember. I honestly don’t remember.

The holes are the most challenging part.

I have gaps in my memory large enough to fall through. Moments that should feel solid are vapor. Sometimes I can picture them clearly. Conjure them whole from darkened corners. The cartoonish football players on the wallpaper, a Cookie Monster ceramic, broken and repaired, the smell of my father’s Jovan Musk, and my mother’s tea breath. Other times, I wonder if I’ve invented all of it. I question every image that surfaces. Was I there? Did it happen that way? Did it happen at all?

You can lose track of who you are when your memories won’t cooperate. You begin to doubt the shape of your own story. The very fabric of your life.

The story I do remember—or think I do—isn’t a kind one. It’s full of absence. An abusive father who drank too much. A cowering mother who was there but not present. The kind of family where silence was the loudest sound. I was the mistake — the wrong sex, the bad child, the wrong everything. I was the son who wasn’t supposed to exist. They wanted another girl. They got me.

I learned early that being unwanted leaves a mark. Not the kind you see. The kind that sits underneath the skin, whispering that you’re temporary. Replaceable. A placeholder until something better comes along.

And it did.

When my sister was born, I saw the relief on their faces. The family was finally “complete.” The perfect daughter arrived, and the unwanted son faded into the background. I wasn’t needed anymore, not that I ever had been. I retreated, I became the quiet one, the invisible one. Easier that way. A target you can’t see is more challenging to hit.

A target you can’t see is more challenging to hit.

My father used to grab for whatever was nearby — a belt, a wooden spoon, his words. The belt left marks, marks that faded. The words stayed longer, scarred. “You’re useless.” “You’re lucky even to be here.” I grew up carrying those words like a second spine. They straightened me when I wanted to collapse, kept me upright in ways that weren’t always healthy.

And maybe that’s why writing scares me. Because every time I write, I risk hearing those voices again. The ones that say, “Who cares what you think?” “You have nothing to offer.” “You’re wasting your time.”

But sometimes, beneath the noise, another voice tries to break through — quieter, uncertain, but persistent. It says, “You have something to say.” Maybe not something new. Perhaps not something profound. But something true.

And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe writing doesn’t have to be about genius or originality or proving I belong. Perhaps it’s about bearing witness — to the confusion, the forgetting, the bruises that memory left behind. Maybe the point isn’t to write something new, but to write something mine.

As a child, I would reenact movie scenes alone in my room, memorizing lines in front of the mirror. It feels like my life has been a never-ending act based on someone else’s script, though I can’t remember when the curtain was raised. Deep inside, I sense this isn’t the role I was truly meant to play.

I’m uncertain if I’ll ever feel comfortable calling myself a writer. However, I do know that when I write, I cease to disappear. For a brief time, the fog lifts. The words may not be elegant or unique, but they are genuine. They are mine.

And maybe that’s all writing is — a way to remind yourself that you exist, that you still have a voice, even when the memories don’t agree.

Maybe that’s enough.