I am eight years old and my toes are dangling off the edge of the top dock at my parents’ lake house. The sweat pooling under my ponytail can either be attributed to my fear or the fact that it is the middle of July and we are in Virginia. My parents and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles are all cheering for me to jump from below. I walk backwards and try to take a running start but as soon as I get a foot from the ledge––I freeze. The chants turn into disappointed sighs. This repeats a few more times. I will not end up jumping today or tomorrow or even next summer. No one is surprised as this has happened every summer since I learned to swim. It will take me two more summers before I learn the secret behind my courage.

Left foot––five. Right foot––four. Left foot––three. Right foot––two. Left foot––one. The next step flails in the air and I am falling. I am afraid, but I am silent. My body hits the water awkwardly, but I come up for air, and I am breathing. 

I am scared of just about everything. But I have learned that if I simply count down from five, I can do just about everything: Fall out of an airplane. Eat a cricket. Self-belay down an ice slope. Answer the door when the boy knocks. Step off the platform of the zipline. Tell my friend how sorry I am after I mess up. Jump off of the freaking dock!

I write about the things that have hurt me the most. I write about the emotions that float around in my heart that my head can’t quite figure out. I can count down and just get the words onto the page. It takes me a lot longer than five seconds to get my words off of my page and into someone else’s hands. 

I cried in my car for an hour the day of my college graduation. I feared I would never have enough time to write again. I feared I would never find a community of writers who could give me honest and thoughtful feedback. Both things were true in some ways and false in others. 

The one person I have ever consistently shared my work with is my friend, Gracie. She is too nice to ever say anything mean to me, and so she has been safe. In fact, she is the first one to read this letter. I search for my validation as a writer in people like Gracie. I searched for it in my professors and peers in college.

I search for validation just about everywhere I go: The numbers on a scale. The boys who tell me I look pretty on a first date. The texts I get on my birthday. The cords and medals I wore at graduation. The friends who compliment my outfits. The clapping after I jump off of the freaking dock!

But I know this is not a life that is sustainable. I place my life in Jesus Christ, and I credit my gift and love of writing to Him and only Him. He directs every word I write and period I dot. I write about hard, real things, and a lot of things I am not quite ready to share yet. But here is what I have written for me, and now I give it to you.

Five, four, three, two, one…

Kaileigh Brackett