Writing was always been my thing. Though it started as a way to release my anger and frustrations, it blossomed into something more.. well.. flowery, and more complex. Believe it or not, the lead singer of a pop band helped me develop it.

Enter Alex Deleon, or “Singer,” they’d call him, since 3/5 of the band were named Alex. He gave me JT vibes, and it was clear that despite the genre of the band and the scene it was in, he had a little soul, jazz, and R&B influence in his music. And he had long hair. So fourteen year old me was obviously crushing hard.

It sounds kinda funny now, but I used to sit in my room and write love letters to him. I mean, I didn’t flat out tell him I loved him, but I did in so many ways. I’d write about how his words inspired and moved me; How his writing made me feel less alone; How his love letters to whoever he was dreaming of made me dream, too. We didn’t have access to celebrities like we do now, but I didn’t need to know him to know he was a visionary and a romantic. My imagination filled in the rest of the gaps. His posts on Tumblr were poetic, melodic, captivating. And his music gave me a hand to hold at a time I needed it the most.

Was I in love? Of course not. But I loved romanticizing him. Exploring my own words and imagination while using him as my muse. I even sent him my writing once. I’m not sure if he ever read it. I hope he didn’t. But that was my first taste of anxiously submitting a piece of my soul to be read and critiqued, No writer ever feels their work is done. But he’d know that.

This head-in-the-clouds style of writing stuck with me. Although I didn’t have a real, tangible love interest, I unknowingly worked everyday to write him into existence. I’d find parts of him in different boys I liked, but romanticizing men has always come naturally to me. Sometimes I think I could love anybody. You can find the beauty in a lot of things. but I learned how to write beauty into them.

I snapchatted Alex once to tell him how his writing inspired me to write and how it lead me to my dream job right out of college. He actually responded and told me he was proud of me. I forgot about that until now. It’s funny how we can dream about something for so long, but when it’s finally in front of us, it doesn’t quite make our hearts explode like we thought it would. It’s not that I didn’t care, but I guess I grew up. My mind was preoccupied with another muse - one I hoped was finally real, finally tangible, but ultimately was just another “singer.”

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t like this. Seeing the beauty in things can be dangerous sometimes. It’s hard to know what’s in my head and what’s real. But I remind myself that if I didn’t have this ability - if I hadn’t fallen in love with a written concept of love - I might have never found it. I’m grateful for my muses, and I’m truly blessed to have found my thing, which is writing. And I have the lead singer of a band to thank for that.

Here are a few of my favorite posts by Alex in the 2010’s. Can you see similarities in our writing?

• These Are The Lies. <- This was posted in 2012 but was later released as a song w/ an additional verse in 2014 which is cute.

• Being Misunderstood

• Love.