Sasha Brudlo

There are so many reasons why I write. It’s an enjoyable way to spend my time, it gives me purpose, it brings me a deep satisfaction, and I have a lot of things I want to say while I still have the time. There’s also the hope that, somewhere, someone will read my words and feel understood, empowered, and less alone. But when I really think about it, I realize there is one main reason I keep writing, one reason I will never be able to stop.

I write because I want to make something beautiful out of my pain. I want to create a reason for the chaos I have endured.

I write to hold power over the traumas that once held power over me, to make it so my suffering was worth something after all.

I write to pull meaning out of ugliness, even if there is none. If meaning doesn’t exist, I create it, and I keep creating it, and it exists because I command it to.

This is why I have no interest in writing stories that leave out the darkness of life. My stories are full of grief, tragedy, mental illness, and flawed people navigating shitty circumstances. But they are also full of hope, resilience, love. My characters are strong in spite of their traumas, not because of them. They are survivors because they had to be. They are piecing together lives that were too young to be shattered in the first place. They are okay, and that is their happy ever after.

So I will continue twisting my pain into beauty, and I will turn tragedy into art, over and over again, and I will shout my story from the rooftops in the hopes that the light overtakes the dark. And someday, I will look back on this life of mine, and I will see a trail of daisies growing out of the mud.