I wanted to belong.

My whole life, I'd spent trying hard to find that place that I fit in and it wasn't until I found the writing community that it all made sense. All those years of trying to find my little slot of importance was right there, and I was letting it slip through my fingers.

I'd gone on hiatus. I'd lost my interest and life became too hard to bear. It was like since I couldn't write and didn't, I lost part of myself and began bottling up everything that was ever important to me.

Writing was my outlet. I had a story to tell but I wanted others to read it. I wanted so badly to fit in that it hurt because it was the only place I felt like I finally belonged. There, I was loved, I was important, all the things I'd spent my life doubting were like the feelings of some doubting Thomas piling up inside me.

I wanted that feeling- I craved it. I wanted that feeling of acceptance and love even if it meant pouring out my real life feelings into my fictional stories. I'd found where I belonged. So why was I fretting?

Feedback. Ultimately, that's where I fell apart. I wanted to fit in so badly that I began surviving off of every little comment I received and when those began dropping off the face of the earth, so did my worth and relevance.

I didn't want to become irrelevant. I didn't want people to stop reading what I'd written. I felt like I was a good writer, that I had what it took to be relevant and loved and important in the community I'd found. So why did I feel like I was lost? Why did random strangers' opinions matter so much to me when you're 'supposed to write for yourself?' What's the point of writing if nobody is reading?

So I fell apart. All those feelings of abandonment and misplacement came flooding back and it wasn't long before I stopped writing altogether. And life went on without me. It was like some sick twist of fate to show me that I never really mattered. Nobody missed me. Nobody missed what I was writing, so why go back?

The community I'd found felt like it was crumbling up underneath me and I was soon to fall in. Everything I'd built and worked so hard on to make a name for myself was disappearing right under my nose and there was nothing I could do to stop it because I was STUCK.

My inspiration fluttered away from me then. I found that no ideas were popping into my head the way they usually did on a daily basis. I spent hours staring at the prompts I'd come up with years ago and only frowned at each and every one as nothing was coming to me. Sure, they were good ideas and sure I could probably write them if I sat down and tried really hard but would anybody even read them? Would it be worth it in the end?

I sat down at my computer and opened the lid to a fresh sheet of digitized paper. Staring at it, my hands shakily found the keys and words burst forth me like water from a dam. I wrote down every emotion, every reason I'd quit writing and found that the reason I'd given up, the REAL reason, was me. I'd given up in not just my community but myself. I wanted a name for myself and I had given up trying to get one. Mattering meant so much to me. BEING someone meant so much to me and for some odd reason, that was the ultimate demise of my writing; wanting so badly to BE someone that I forgot how to and thus became lost from the only community I'd ever felt like I belonged in.

So here I am. Sitting at my computer staring at the words I've written and longing to post them once again. Arnold says I should try, he's so supportive, but he doesn't know what it's like to search your whole life for the place you belong- he's always had friends and people who love him and after finding his parents, his life seemed to fall into place in a way mine never has.

Unless I'm with him.

"Do it," he says over my shoulder while watching me stare down the very words I'd written. "Do it for yourself. See what happens."

See what happens he'd said.

I'd see. I'd see what happens and then, maybe then, I'd be able to find myself in this community all over again. Maybe then I'd finally find where it was that I belong, and stay there, fully accepted, fully loved, and fully someone who was important to at least another being.

My writing wouldn't stop. The only thing standing in my way, was myself.

Pretty self-explanatory and easy to figure out but i just want to say that i won't be going anywhere and i hope you will all continue to read my stories and enjoy them as i've enjoyed writing them. i may doubt myself a lot but your kind words get me through it and that's where i feel i belong.

-Polka