On Sunday I got on a bus. It was a day off, everyone was crowding and pushing. The fare costs five pesos, and in front of me a woman was fiddling with a ten-peso coin. Either they couldn't give her change, or she herself wanted to find exactly five pesos, God knows. I told her, "Excuse me, let me give you my five-peso coin, and you pay ten for the two of us." She looked at me with wide eyes, " What do you mean I should pay for the two of us?! Pay for yourself!" I said, "Well, I'll give you five pesos." She frowned, "I don't need anything, I'll only pay for myself. You young people have become completely insolent." Those who heard this twirled their fingers at their temples, someone muttered under his breath about “stupid women”, but in the end everyone sat down, and the lady somehow sorted out the fare herself. The bus was on the way, I was looking out the window and listening to music. Suddenly someone touched me on the shoulder. I turned around - the same ten-peso woman was standing in front of me. I expected anything, but not what she said. “Excuse me, miss. I only now realized what you were suggesting. It was a hard week, I didn't rest at the weekend, so I became dull. Sorry. I wish that hadn't happened.” This is how a funny story about a “stupid woman” ended up as a story about a tired woman who does not forget to take responsibility for her behavior. Mistakes don't matter. What matters is that you deal with their consequences.

After lunch, it was time for recess and I wanted to play on the jungle gym in the center of the playground. My very nice friends were talking up there and laughing when we decide to play a game called "Space Monkey". Someone is "it" and they chase everyone around. If you are tagged or touch the ground you are it. So I was climbing and sometimes we are very slow at climbing and we have to wait for them to move before we can go. I hate being it. So I try climb passed that person but I slipped. It was very hot and I had sweaty hands. I try to regain my balance I ended upside, with my pink underwear showing. I try to hide it. But it was too late. Everyone saw it. I was so embarrassed, I just dropped. I was so high up. I hit my head. HARD. I wake up and everyone was around me and I remember what happened my and my friends help me up. And everyone started clapping. Suddenly I wasn't so embarrassed because my friends told me that nobody was laughing at my underwear. My very funny classmate told a joke. Another round of applause and I take a bow. Now I have a lot of new friends from different classes at my school. And from then on, I remember this "Don't be embarrassed we are all humans and we all make mistakes."

The bare bones of writing comes down to expressing a thought, idea, or feeling. We use it to communicate with others, as a way to convey a message we find important or personal. The bare bones doesn't care about brilliance, complexity, mistakes, or your chosen medium (pen and paper, anyone?). It's significant in only having written your word or words of choice, and the rest—be it a masterpiece, or just a grocery list—is up to you. When I was a teenager, the act of writing was a way to release, and to entertain myself. I wrote stories with characters that accurately, if not dramatically, conveyed the emotions that I had a hard time expressing in my adolescence. The themes crossed paths with things I experienced, and things that I anticipated to experience. It was my world, glittering and bright, even through the dark themes and circumstances that were written. While I didn't know it at the time, it was an important self-reflection through elaborate plot lines and quirky characters. It didn't matter that it wasn't what I had deemed publish-worthy. All that mattered was that I conveyed my feelings, and sometimes shared them with others—and with that, catharsis. I stopped writing like that years ago. These days, writing has become something of a chore. The pressures I put upon myself to just write something good, or even better than good, made my joy burn out like a candle wick. I put writing on hold while my life unraveled into the milestone of young adulthood. Through it all, I'm certain that my life would have a clearer direction, and my soul a happier glow, had I written... anything. No matter what though, I couldn't bring myself to do it, even if it were simply “Today sucked.” The desire to create was burning in my veins, but my self doubt riddled me with a hate plague I couldn't shake. Taking a look back, I knew I yearned simply for life experience. I wanted to experience without reflection, even if that took me through a lot of impulsive choices that I regret now. It also took work to sit down, focus, and write. Now, with the desire to be heard, to be seen as articulate, and with something to offer, I still struggle. The fear of a page written with utter garbage is a greater fear than of an empty one. And I want to change that—even if the page is merely filled with one word, I'll know I've put forth an effort to say something. In today's world, where everyone puts out their best image, their best work, and the edited, filtered versions of themselves—I vow to allow myself to be raw, messy, mediocre, and riddled with mistakes. To speak what's on my mind, to dare to create, to do. It's now my time for honesty, even if it masquerades as a poem, a crime drama screenplay, an essay, or an account of my day. The bare bones are all that matter, and even if to no avail, it all ends up in a graveyard—then, at least for a moment, they lived.