In high school I had the sneaking suspicion that someone was reading my diary. Well, not someone, more specifically, more parents. It was small things, like, my book was not in the same place between my mattress and bedframe, or, the handwritten notes, meticulously folded into complicated self-sealing envelopes, had double holes from the thumb tacks pinning them to my bulletin board where only one had been.

My diary had always been a safe space for me. Living in a large family with three younger brothers, it was a quiet empty space, that I could fill with my thoughts alone. It was were I worked out the complications of being a teenage girl without judgement. It was a place where I could work on my script for a Broadway Musical-which as an adult I have come to realize was just “Cats” with different names. My first crushes, my hopes for the future, my frustrations, nothing was off limits in the pages of those books.

Ok, so maybe I was being spied on, but how was I going to figure it out?

I had watched enough Scooby Doo to know that sometimes you have to lay a trap to undercover the culprit. Did I decide to lie in wait in my closet or under my bed to catch the unwelcomed guest? No. Did I set up cameras? Absolutely not. It was the early ninety’s and 14 year old’s generally had no access to that kind of advanced electronics on a daily basis.

No, my 14-year-old brain decided that the only logical thing to do was to make up a story that would be so infuriating to my parents that they would be forced to confront me. A story so scandalous that there would be no way the conservative parents who were raising me could continue invading my space in quiet. Duty would require them to confront the issue in order to ensure my salvation.

I invented a steamy make-out session with my then boyfriend within the pages of my diary.

In hindsight, this was a terrible idea. There was only one way it was going to end. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. But that didn’t stop me. I’d rehash those details here, but the pages were subsequently ripped out of the book. A false history that did not belong. So let’s just say it was about as steamy as a super-religious-14-year-old-never-been-on-a-date-much-less-made-out-with-a-boy could make it.

The trap was set and it worked! A couple of days after it was written my parents summoned me to the kitchen table to have a talk. They told me other parents were talking about my behavior at school and that they had been told I was making out in the hallways. I denied it. That fell on deaf ears. And as punishment I was forced to write a 500 word essay on the “Value of Charity.”

No mention of the diary was made. Nor did I confront the readers. What was clear was that I no longer had a safe place to dream, to think, to vent, or to celebrate. It was the last time I wrote consistently in my life. Writing was stolen from me on that day.

Sure, I write still today. I spend most of my days engaged in legal writing. I write blog posts about things I love: travel, the law, my family. But raw, honest, and unfiltered writing has been illusive. As a child I dreamed of being an author. I would go to the library and copy down addresses of publishing companies in New York so that I had them at the ready when I was ready to send the first chapters of my book off for consideration. I would write contributors to National Geographic and ask for advice on my budding career as an explorer. Jane Goodall even wrote me back, when I was in fifth grade!

After writing was stolen from me, my career goals tamed considerably to that of an English teacher and then to that of a lawyer. I often wonder what might have been and I hope one day to find the courage to yell loud enough that it finds it way back home. More importantly, I have learned that small experiences have a huge impact on developing minds. As hard as it is, I try everyday not to quell the enthusiasm of my own children’s dreams, by overstepping boundaries into those private safe spaces they have created for themselves.

Lastly, I am trying every day to be honest with myself, to force myself to write privately an honestly, at least one sentence a day so that my voice can find it’s way back home. Because unlike tangible things, what was once stolen from me can be returned with just a little bit of courage.