The summer of 2014, I attended a Duke T.I.P Creative Writing program at Davidson College. On the first day of class, my instructor, Laura, asked each of the sixteen students in the class the same four questions. The first one was very simple. What is your name? The next one was simple too. Where are you from? The third one was getting a little more thoughtful. What is your favorite book? And the last one was the real winner. Why do you write?
I answered the first three very easily. I quite obviously knew my name and where I am from. My favorite books had been Thirteen Reasons Why and The Outsiders for a few years so that wasn't too hard. But that last question. That one was the one that really tripped me up.
I had been sitting in the back of the classroom and so I was one of the last people to answer. As my fellow classmates answered that fourth and final question, they each brought something deep and meaningful into their answers. One girl said that she writes so she can share the hardships of when she was bullied. Another girl said that she wants people to know about the horrors of sickness, so she writes about that. A third girl said that she wishes to change the world one day and the only way she can think to do that is through writing.
Suddenly it was my turn to answer and I rattled off my first three answers like I'd been preparing them for months. Then when it came time for that last question, my answer was about as philosophical and deep as it can get!
More like it was as philosophical as a piece of thread and as deep as a raindrop.
I don't know. I guess because I like it and I'm good at it.
That was my answer. Although it is very true because why would I write if I don't like it and am not somewhat good at it, I could tell that it was not the answer Ms. Laura was looking for.
After that day, I made it my mission to somehow figure out why exactly I write. I believe I have finally figured it out, but I'll need to share some backstory beforehand to have it make sense to anyone but myself.
At first, I am extremely shy. I do not talk to people unless I already know them or I'm forced to. Why this is, I'm not sure. It's just how I am and how I always have been.
I had been getting much better with this issue during fourth and fifth grade. I was becoming more outgoing and it became much easier for me to talk to others and make new friends. Then I don't know what happened. Middle school began and I was back to the version of me that was too afraid to crawl out of her shell and let the world see who I truly was. I spoke to my friends, my teachers when they called on me, and to people who spoke to me first. That was it. I hardly even talked to my family and if I'm going to be completely honest, I still hardly do.
I recall one day in the lunch line in sixth grade, I was standing behind a boy who was in three out of the six of my classes. He turned around to me and asked, "Do you talk?" I responded the best way I could, with a nod of my head. He eyed me suspiciously, clearly not believing me since I wouldn't even answer his question with my voice, and then just went about getting his food, forgetting all about the situation.
I won't lie, the boy from my lunch line and I are now very close friends but that didn't happen until seventh grade. I was originally put in all advanced classes at the beginning of that school year, but after three schedule changes within the first three weeks of school, I found myself in all gifted classes. I don't know if you know how gifted classes work, but basically all of the twenty two kids in my classes had gone to the same gifted elementary school since at least third grade. They all had the exact same schedule in sixth grade and now they did too in seventh grade. That is all except for one- me. I'm not truly labeled gifted and therefore did not go to that elementary school. I did not have any classes with any of them in sixth grade, minus lunch line boy because I had electives with him, and here I was. It was three weeks into school so even the new students had wormed their ways into the tight clique that is the gifted world.
It was open seating in language arts class and we sat in groups of three. There had twenty one students in that class before I got placed in it. Twenty one divided by three is a perfect seven. I sat alone at a group of three desks in the back of the room, not having anyone to talk to and by that point, I wouldn't have talked to any of them anyway.
My teacher caught on to my loneliness very quickly and soon gave us assigned seats in groups of three and one of four. She claimed that it was because we were being to noisy, but I knew that wasn't the case. It was because I was alone and she needed me to talk to someone.
I got out into a group with the boy from the lunch line, the biggest thug in school who I was actually quite good friends with because of art class in sixth grade, and a girl I had every single class on my schedule with.
By the end of that first day sitting with my group, I was talking. Not necessarily because I wanted to or because I felt comfortable doing it, but because I needed to. I was forced to by my teacher and I didn't want to upset her. Quite frankly, I'm happy she did because the boy from the lunch line and I are still the best of friends. That thug and I drifted apart after he got kicked out of the gifted program, but when he was there, he was there for me. He could always make me smile or laugh, mostly because of his horrible attitude towards our teacher and the language he used when he thought she couldn't hear him. The girl with every class with me, she made me feel welcome in every new room I entered and I couldn't have been more grateful to her for that.
The point of this anecdote is not to talk about some friends I made, but to show that if I had not been forced into a situation where I needed to speak to others, I wouldn't have. I would have been perfectly content with sitting by myself at that table for three in the back for the rest of the year.
My shyness brought about the true answer to that fourth question Ms. Laura asked and it took me until now to realize it.
I write because I am too scared to speak verbally, but I have no fear for my written words.
When I talk to a person face to face, I struggle to find the words I want to use to converse with them. As a result, I end up saying as few words as I can to keep me from embarrassing myself by using too many or ones that have absolutely no relevance. I get anxiety just from the thought of having to talk to someone I don't know and so I never do. When I do try to break out of my shell, I slink right back into it at the first available opportunity.
When I write though, I have no fear. I know exactly what it is I want to say and I let my pen, pencil, or keyboard show it to the world. I don't struggle to find the correct words because they're all in my mind and they don't have to go anywhere else but a piece of paper. They don't have to travel through the air to reach another person's ears. They just have to be written down and then anyone who wants to see them can and anyone who doesn't won't have to feel obligated to listen. Writing gives me the power to say what I need to say without the fears that come from actual speaking.
One of my favorite quotes has always been, "Writing is the fight against silence." No other words can more accurately describe why I write. Writing gives me the opportunity to escape from whatever it is in my life that is bringing me down and let it go. It gives me someone to listen to me when there is nobody there, even if that thing listening to me is a piece of notebook paper.
In the wise words of Anne Frank, "I think a lot but I don't say much."
When my thoughts are transferred to a piece of paper or to a word document on my computer, it gives me an audience. It gives me someone that will actually hear my voice even though my mouth is shut. It gives me the chance to share my struggles with people who will not judge and who may be able to relate. It gives me a place where all of my words will be heard without interruptions like what goes on at home. I can begin a story twenty times and never finish it because someone else in my five person family feels that their words are more important than mine. They'll cut right in and leave me with nothing but words hanging in the air that no one will ever hear because no one is listening. Writing is a way for me to share those stories that my family will never know with people who care enough to read them and appreciate them.
My father always tells me, "You don't speak."
I used to just reply to this statement by saying that I do. I recently have developed a new response that throws him for a loop every time I say it. "I talk, you just don't listen."
It is entirely true. I will tell my father or my mother something and then the next day they'll be upset with me for not telling them. They don't believe me when I say that I did, even if one of my brothers back me up.
The point is that I write because it allows me to be heard. Anywhere else, my words are lost. I either don't say them because I'm too shy or too afraid, or I say them to thin air.
When I write, people listen. And that's all I have ever wanted.
So Ms. Laura, if you ever find yourself reading this somehow, please forget about my previous answer and accept this one instead.
I write because while often the words that escape my lips betray me, the words that I write will forever stand by my side.