Tannairy Morales-Rivera

Mrs.Fulcher

English 12

September 09, 2023.

Writer’s block

A feeling that comes from frustration and develops into not knowing what else to write,

say or do, better known as a writer's block. Writing is one of my hobbies and as a writer, I should

be used to it and to be honest I think I am, because I have experienced this feeling many times in

a lot of different ways. A writer’s block is not just a feeling that could be experienced in writing,

because we can also interpret this feeling in real life. Life is like a blank sheet of paper that we

sometimes don’t know how to fill in, because there are things that happen that sometimes make

us lose track of our “writing”. As I said, I’ve experienced this feeling before in real life, which is

something that I’m sure not many people have. I am also sure that not many people have

experienced that feeling after becoming homeless or after leaving their parents behind to move to

a country without knowing the language, and ironically to get a better education without not even

knowing how to read a clock, count pennies, or even use a calculator. If you had time to guess,

then you guessed right, because that's kind of my story.

remember cristal clear the day after the hurricane when you and your family decided to go out of

your grandparents house to see what had happened to your house. Now imagine feeling a raw

emotion of deep sadness and your body being petrified after realizing that half of your house was

gone and destroyed. I don’t think you can really imagine how hard it was to wash your clothes in

the river, and shower there too, and also wait an infinite amount of hours to get fuel for the car to

go and buy food so I won’t make you imagine that as if you were doing it, instead imagine a nine

year old girl doing that. Now, was it hard? Yes. Did you like it? No, not at all. Did it teach you

something? As weird as it sounds, it definitely did.

Resilience.

Now you’re fourteen and you moved to the United States after working and saving

money to buy your own ticket and your own books to study a new language. Your parents stayed

in Puerto Rico because there was not enough money for all of you so you moved with your aunt.

You moved in an age where you were not a child anymore, but you were already grown up

enough to believe things that you learned in your country and have to ignore all that to start from

zero, so that you could fit in, which was a challenge. It was hard to adapt and it was your first

year in high school since freshman year was in Puerto Rico and it was online because of

COVID-19. Even though it was a challenge to adapt to a new culture and leave your parents

behind at a young age, the biggest challenge was definitely your education. When you started

high school, you didn’t understand what your teachers were saying, first because of the language

and second because your level of education was like a fifth grader or worse. Not knowing how to

read the clock is something, but counting pennies and a calculator, really? You technically had to
teach yourself the language, how to manage your time, and also had to study extra so that you

could get to the same level of education as your classmates. Same question as before, did it teach

you something? Yes, it did.

Resilience.

Now going back to me, all the things I just made you imagine are just a small fragment of

my life, but they are things that marked me significantly. I struggled to get to where I am now,

but I also knew that there were worse things than just moving to another country. As I said at the

beginning, that frustrating feeling of a writer's block, not knowing what to do, say or think, has

been a feeling that I have experienced many times while “writing” in the pages of life, but it is

also a feeling that I learned to manage with time. I got a new perspective and a new ability to see

struggle as a reason and not an excuse. A reason for me to try harder and harder to get what I

want, when I want it. I am curious, efficient, focused and I have many other qualities that help

me accomplish my goals. I learned how to get rid of the difficulties by knowing that I have faced

worse things in the past and that one more is not going to make me quit because I am not a

quitter.