My Paradox

By Diego Martinez

I had a teacher in 5th grade and for this entry, I will refer to them as “Ms. G”.

I wasn’t a very bright kid in elementary school, especially during this time since I had been dealing with my father leaving the picture. I was also too young to understand that I had people to talk to about it, so I resulted to bottling it up.

Ms. G knew exactly what was going on. Even though I had never spoken to her regarding what exactly was going on, she knew. Eventually I did speak to her regarding what happened. She helped calm the storm that I was in, and for once during that period of time, I felt seen. We spent some lunches together and during this time I wrote stories to help keep my mind focused on something else. These stories had a lot to it because you can imagine the creativity a kid can have.

When I told Ms. G that I enjoyed doing this, she introduced me to journaling. For a while, I was never good at journaling. I found it difficult to write my feelings out, but considering the circumstances, I still tried it.

After many entries filled with emotion, it still didn’t work, but something I learned throughout that progress. I learned how to express myself. It wasn’t with my voice, because I couldn’t speak up for the life of me, but it was through writing. I took a step beyond writing silly stories and from that point on writing slowly started becoming a huge part of my life.

Ms. G then wanted me to start experimenting with poetry.

I’m still not great at that.

I tried though, but poetry was the first step to my discovery of journalism.

I am here now. I check in with Ms. G every once in a while, but It has been a long time since the last time I spoke to her. She knows how far I have come in my writing career. Everything I have accomplished traces back to that moment I tried journaling.

I have no idea if she reads the stuff I write, but I’m sure she knows that moment was the first stepping stone.