I used to chase pavements relentlessly looking for a right answer. Then, one day, I realized I’d run too far off to even stay on the pavement. The revelation came on the Halloween of my Kindergarten year, when our teacher told us, “If you see someone crossing the street alone and talking out loud, that’s bad news. Stay away from them.” Mrs. Jensen was of a stockily built stature, ringlets of an over-gelled burnt sienna clinging to her countenance like the fraying threads of a ruffled holiday sweater, adhered by beads of perspiration that I trailed aimlessly with my gaze, pretending not to notice the derisive glances thrown my way. I had my ample share of “talking out loud” as a child, the case being that I would concoct a series of fictional events in my head and recite them improvisationally. These were the words that would one day translate into my writing. To me, they were just stories, but to the class, from whom harangue ricocheted constantly, I was some species of maniacal scatterbrain chatting it up with myself. This time, though, the bullet hit home. Mrs. Jensen had practically just admitted that I was the equivalent of stranger danger, but it occurred to me that in order to be a mentally deranged character crossing the street, I had to first cross the street, meaning that my destination was the next slab of pavement. The pavement harbored an environment of security, and the feeling of knowing, but I wasn’t ready to seek asylum on a harbor that would weather my identity down to “insane”, so in a way, I made the decision not to cross the street, but to walk in the middle of it, where my safety was jeopardized, but I could tell all the stories I want: Where I had a voice. I wanted my stories to expose the reader to my work, rather than my age, or my ethnicity, or my background. On the pavement, I had the ability to know. To know that I was safe. To know that I was normal. To know the answers. But after I began to write in English class around third grade, I realized my writing sought, not to know, but to find. Like the stories that I used to narrate as thoughts came to me along the way, I wanted to take risks in my writing, to utilize new approaches, and leap off the precipice to excavate a new piece of myself each time I landed in the abyss. I hold the belief that it is inequitous to judge me as a person, when I’m still trying to find my identity through the evidence provided- my work. It wasn’t until I began putting my thoughts on paper that I realized it had never been about searching for the answer. It was always about searching for myself.