Why I Write

Some of you might have read the blog about the teacher who built me.

Ms. Rademacher helped me realize something about myself that I don't think I fully understood before her: what I wanted to say sometimes came out better when I wrote it down.

But technically, I was telling stories long before I knew that's what I was doing.

When I was little, I loved telling stories. A lot of the time, I would draw the pictures while I voiced the story out loud. I wrote poems. I wrote lyrics. I wrote about whatever was happening in my little world at the time.

But writing really became writing for me in high school.

Because that's when I finally had someone who saw something in it, helped me with it, and supported me.

And I think that's when I started realizing that writing wasn't just something I liked doing.

It was how I communicated.

Sometimes My Mouth Can't Keep Up With My Brain

Writing has always been easier for me than talking.

I have extreme social issues, and I get tongue-tied very easily. If I'm nervous, excited, or simply trying to explain something that's really important to me, my words don't always come out in the right order.

I stumble over them.

I switch words around.

I start a sentence, stop, and restart it.

Sometimes I know EXACTLY what I want to say, but I can't get the word—or even the sounds—to come out of my mouth.

Then I get frustrated because I know what I'm trying to tell you. My brain knows. My mouth apparently didn't get the memo.

Writing is different.

When I write, I have time.

I can slow down. I can think about what I'm actually trying to say. I can move things around until the words are where they belong.

Of course, writing comes with its own problem.

I'm dyslexic.

So spelling is absolute hell for me.

But I'd rather fight with spelling than fight with my own mouth trying to get a thought out.

Writing Helps Me Figure Out What I'm Feeling

Writing isn't only about communicating with other people, either.

Sometimes it's how I communicate with myself.

When I don't understand how I'm feeling, I write.

I might start out thinking I'm just pissed off about something. Then I start putting everything down and realize, Oh. I'm angry, but I'm also really hurt.

Or maybe I'm not anxious about something at all. I'm actually excited.

Writing forces me to slow down long enough to figure that out.

And honestly, that keeps me grounded.

It gives me somewhere to put everything before I react too harshly or say something based on the first emotion that hits me.

Sometimes nobody ever sees those words.

I write a lot more than what gets posted on this blog.

There are poems, thoughts, stories, and pieces of my life that have stayed mine.

Maybe someday I'll share some of the poetry I wrote growing up.

Maybe I won't.

And I'm okay with that too.

Not everything I write has to be for somebody else.

I've Been Writing Through Every Version of Me

That's probably one of the craziest things for me to think about.

Five-year-old me wrote about leaving family and moving to Wyoming, trying to understand how I could be so sad and happy at the exact same time.

Young teenage me wrote about liking a boy.

Older teenage me wrote about abuse.

I wrote about not knowing if I was going to make it through what was happening to me.

And now I'm 25 years old.

And I'm still writing.

Except now I'm a business owner writing about caregiving. I write about things I've learned, things my clients have taught me, things I've gotten to experience, mistakes, burnout, grief, family, love, food, and sometimes just the ridiculous things that happen in life.

If you told five-year-old me that I'd still be doing this at 25, I'd probably laugh at you.

Yet here we are.

Why I Started This Blog

When I started blogging, I wanted to help people.

There is so much about caregiving and healthcare that people just don't know, especially when they're first getting started.

Some things you don't learn until you're standing in the middle of them.

I wanted somewhere I could talk about those things.

But somewhere along the way, this blog became about more than caregiving.

Because I've learned a lot of things the hard way.

Going through abuse meant having to talk about some of the ugliest parts of my life with investigators, lawyers, and people I barely knew.

I learned how to talk about ugly things because I didn't really have a choice.

And while I was going through it, I remember wishing there had been someone who would just tell me the ugly truth.

Not make everything sound pretty.

Not give me some perfect inspirational answer.

Just tell me what this shit can actually look like.

So I told myself I'd be that person for somebody else.

And apparently I took that promise pretty seriously, because now I'll write about all kinds of ugly truths.

Burnout.

Grief.

Abuse.

Complicated families.

Relationships.

Mistakes.

The parts of caregiving that aren't pretty.

The parts of life we sometimes don't want to admit out loud.

Because sometimes somebody needs to say it first.

What I Hope You Get From It

I hope when someone reads one of my blogs, they get a few different things from it.

First, I hope you feel understood.

Maybe you've experienced something I've written about and you've never known how to put it into words.

I hope you learn something, too.

Especially from my caregiving blogs. If something I've learned over the years can make another caregiver's job easier, help a family understand something differently, or prepare somebody for something they haven't experienced yet, then sharing it was worth it.

But I also hope you laugh.

I hope sometimes one of my stories makes you think about something ridiculous you did with your own family or friends.

I hope you reminisce.

I hope you remember somebody you love.

And sometimes, I just hope you finish reading and feel a little less alone.

So, Why Do I Write?

At 25 years old and as a business owner, writing is still a lot of things for me.

It's an outlet.

I can take the stress of my job and turn it into something educational.

It's a way to process my own life.

It's a way to understand what I'm feeling before I react to it.

It's a way to tell the truth about things that aren't always easy to talk about.

It's a way to help someone else.

And it's a way to preserve people.

I can write about Gerry and keep pieces of his memory alive.

I can write about the people who built me and finally thank them for things I might never be able to properly say standing in front of them.

I can write about the people I've lost.

I can write about the person I used to be.

And someday, I'll be able to look back at these blogs and remember who I was at 25.

Maybe that's really why I've never stopped.

When my mouth can't find the words, writing usually can.

And whether it's five-year-old me drawing pictures while telling a story, seventeen-year-old me trying to write her way through something she didn't know if she'd survive, or 25-year-old me sitting here writing a blog for Kayla Cares...

I've always had something to say.

I just learned that sometimes, I say it better on paper.

—Kayla