She was the version of you that was a dreamer, the one who held the magazine in her hands and asked, What do these people do? The ones who wrote poetry.

Your brother was a year older than you. When he started high school at a new school, you stayed behind to finish grade school. One day, he came home with a school magazine, excited to show you all the new things about his school. You flipped through the first few pages absentmindedly—until you reached the literary section.

That’s where it happened.

Poetry, written by students. Words arranged in a way that felt like magic. Something inside you stirred, as if a hidden part of you had been awakened. You were twelve when the voices outside no longer mattered. You had already decided—you wanted to write. There was something powerful about it, something in the way words could transform a moment, a feeling, a life. It was enough to make you forget, for a while, about wanting to be a fighter pilot.

That magazine sat in your bedroom for so long, a quiet reminder of what you loved. But then the world outside began to rattle you. You saw what everyone else was doing, weighed reality against the uncertain path of a writer. Stability was what they all chased. Nursing, they said. So you can leave the country, build a future.

But in your heart, writing pulsed louder than reason. Still, the warnings came: There’s no money in it.

Yet you were never the type to listen, were you?

Decades later, during an online writing course, you were given a task: Picture a version of yourself who could help you push past the block that felt like a boulder in your writing process. It was an interesting exercise, but you hadn’t expected the realization that followed.

The 39-year-old you needed the 12-year-old you—the girl who was so sure about writing. She might not have been confident in other things, but she knew, without a doubt, that she could write.

Then the coach asked us to name that thing, that object we envisioned—something to carry with us whenever we needed it again.

I thought for a moment before answering.

“You,” I said. “Myself. All the versions of me.”

If there’s one thing both fantastic and dangerous about you, it’s that you tend to answer doubt with a simple, unwavering:

“Well, you haven’t seen me do it yet.”