Jessica Golden

Why Do I Write? The Biggest Challenge of All

 

Why do I write? Well, as I sit down to begin my fourth rough draft response to this essay, I really am unsure if I have an answer to that. My first few drafts were an attempt to make my relationship with writing romantic, to make it seem like I had found myself through writing and had a “writing metamorphosis” in college. I even wrote a draft about how the only way I’m able to truly express myself is through a couple hours in front of a blank page and then an explosion of words and emotions like a 6th grade volcano project. I’m pretty sure the person writing those drafts wasn’t actually me.

 

So why do I write? The most challenging part about answering this and writing about myself has to be that I have never even written for myself. All I’ve really done is written for everyone else besides me. I wrote for New York State, each time I took a grade level standardized test. I wrote for my nine different English teachers, who each time wanted me to be slightly different and always improve at my comparing and contrasting. I wrote a lot of college application essays, making sure each word reflected how our interests aligned perfectly. I wrote so much to fit nicely into everyone’s cookie-cutter standards that writing was never fun for me, it was just something I did and completed.

I never really had this love towards writing, and if I do now it is only in that early “kind of like” stage. When I first smell or see or touch or taste something, descriptive words don’t start circling around in my head. I don’t like to stare off into the distance imagining characters’ lives unfolding that I immediately need to write down. After thirteen years of learning new words and grammar rules, my first thought of writing usually involves a structured research paper, pretty much the farthest thing from personal introspection.

 

Looking back, the only time I remember writing for myself was when I was eight. I remember what it was like to be sitting in my 3rd grade classroom when my principal ran in explained that anyone who had parents that worked in the city should use the teachers phone to contact them. Strange how my first memory of that day isn’t seeing the towers crash down in a city I considered home, but instead my memory consists of my friends rapidly dialing their parents’ phone numbers. For a few months after, I wrote poetry about the darkness over New York. My eight-year-old words touched on destruction and my wavering faith in humanity.

 

I guess that can count as using writing to express my emotion? Although I stopped writing poetry pretty fast after all my poems sounded the same. At times, I considered writing a diary so I could remember moments and emotions. Like anything, it was a great idea at the time, but the execution was tricky. I’m not really the “write down your feelings every day” type of person.

 

Two months into my freshman year of college, my father suffered from a stroke during emergency open-heart surgery. I’ve tried for the last three semesters through scholarship essays and miscellaneous work to put into words the flashbacks I have. From the phone call when he was in surgery, flying home to spend the days bed side in intensive care to watching my mother breakdown when my father realized he lost the ability to use his left hand. I wince while I write that last part. Writing may be therapeutic to many and I am sure that if I could finally write down all the memories and emotions I have avoided saying out loud that it would feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, but it just isn’t possible. The words aren’t just right yet; they just can’t capture the exactness of my real nightmare.

 

I probably can’t write about my experience with my dad because it is difficult. That sounds so simple to say but it is true. Of course, some topics are easier than others to talk or write about. Last year, I wrote one of my favorite papers about myself. It was about how walking in a fashion show taught me that even if you don’t win it is always worth it to step out of your comfort zone. The paper was comical and real, there was no hiding for me behind my words. I addressed that it was awkward to not be a size two in a fashion show and have a less than perfect pageant response. By less than perfect I mean running off stage in pure freight, but that is for another paper. I stated the uncomfortable moments just as they were, uncomfortable. I believe that honesty is powerful and that is what can make writing great. Moments can come back to life exactly as they were, without fluff and not always a happy ending.

 

Maybe it is just me, but I truly enjoy it when my writing can speak the truth. I think that it isn’t necessarily that I’m not ready to share my father’s story, but instead that I can’t find the words to bring it to life the way I feel it everyday. That is palpable to me by the way I can’t even use the word dad when telling the story. I never call my dad “father”, but when I talk about his health, word choice becomes my defense mechanism. It is impersonal. When I do write about it, I’ll use the word dad, for now it is too close for comfort, too big for words.

There are so few times in life when people can be meticulous and honest about what they put out in the world. While I’d like to think that a good amount of the time the things I say out loud are well thought out, it never comes out as nicely as I imagined. Writing has given me this opportunity to get it right.

 

Why did getting to here take my four drafts in one day? Because if you don’t like what you are saying, mid-sentence, mid-paragraph, mid-paper you can stop and hit undo. How often in life is there an undo button? I like the challenge that I face every time I have to write something, the need to fight off the versions of myself writing those drafts so she can impress someone or make it for a better story. It is powerful that my words can become (eventually) exactly what I intend them to be. This is the only domain in my life where I am and can be so meticulous to keep deleting and re-changing things because it has the sole ability to be who I am on a piece of paper. Writing is challenging but writing can be beautiful.