The Gift of a First Draft

Do you know one thing I love about writing? There’s always a first draft.

The first draft is messy, raw, and unfiltered. It doesn’t care about punctuation or presentation. It doesn’t care if it stumbles. It only cares about showing up on the page.

In that way, writing mirrors life. Every time I pick up my pen, I’m reminded that I too am allowed to stumble. I am allowed to take risks. I am allowed to show up imperfectly.

But somewhere along the way, I learned to hide behind armour.

The Beginning?

When I was in grade 5, I tried out for the cheerleading squad. I wanted to be like the girls I saw on TV, waving pom-poms, flipping through the air, wearing the pretty clothes. My reasons were shallow, but I was eight, and in my little world, they mattered.

The audition was open to girls from grades 4 through 6, and I arrived buzzing with excitement. We danced. We twirled. We laughed nervously, waiting to see who would be chosen. One by one, instructors walked through the rows, tapping shoulders, reducing the crowd.

My heart thumped wildly, but I believed I’d make it. I was sure of it. Until a hand touched my shoulder and I was told to step out.

It was the smallest gesture, but it cut deep.

Did this mean I wasn’t good enough? Why me and not the others? Why step into the arena only to be told “no”?

That was the first time I felt the sting of rejection so sharp that I began to armour up.

Learning Vulnerability

Years later, I would discover Brené Brown’s work. She gave language to something I had been wrestling with since that cheerleading audition. She defined vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

That definition stopped me. Because wasn’t that exactly what I had feared? The uncertainty of being chosen. The risk of trying. The exposure of failing in front of others.

But Brené also pointed me to a speech by Theodore Roosevelt—The Man in the Arena:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly… who errs, who comes short again and again… but who does actually strive to do the deeds… who at the best knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The first time I read those words, it felt like they had been written just for me.

To Debs: let go.

Just. Let. Go.

Let yourself be seen. Let yourself be perceived. Let yourself be enjoyed.

The world is waiting for what you carry.

Why I Write

I began to understand myself more deeply the moment I put pen to paper. Writing became my first draft made flesh. Each word was a piece of armour slipping off. The armour I picked up as a child, the armour that whispered my thoughts had to be polished, never messy.

But writing taught me the opposite.

Writing is presence. It is the act of showing up again and again, even when my voice shakes. It is choosing to face the page when I’d rather hide.

And somehow, in that steady showing up, the chaos inside begins to settle. The jumble of ideas untangles. The emotions find order. And I realize…maybe, just maybe…I’ve been making sense all along.

The Web That Holds It Together

The first draft. The cheerleading audition. Brené’s definition. Roosevelt’s arena. My own scribbled pages. They are all pieces of the same web.

Each one teaches me that life is not about hiding from the tap on the shoulder. It’s about daring to show up anyway.

So I remind myself:

• My thoughts deserve a home.

• My voice deserves a home.

• I choose vulnerability.

• I choose me.