Please respond to the following questions in the form of a paragraph:
1. What are two distinctive memories you have of yourself writing?
2. Consider each of those memories separately. For each memory, describe the scene. What were you like? Age? What was the feeling when you wrote? Who was around you? What was the task? Be as detailed as you can for each memory.
3. Now look at these two memories together. How are each of these “writing selves” connected to one another?
4. Afterwards, you might reflect on if any of these selves exist in the writer you are today–in this 121 classroom.
The walls were white, computers lined against the wall and college flags hung upon the bulletin board. The sun beamed on my back while I held my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes from lack of sleep. Writing my last paragraph of my college essay seemed almost as bad as the lunch they served this hour. My thoughts were constantly interrupted by the growl in my stomach as if it was screaming, feed me! No one but my senior counselor could hear the cries. The voice in my head that screamed to be accepted by the colleges of my choice were louder however. I was merely a seventeen year old girl ready to take on the world with ambition as strong as my stomach.
Nieve, I’m so fascinated by the way you link hunger and writing here. It’s almost like you’re trying to show the reader that both are physical necessities that you are unable to satiate in the moment. I also love the simile, “ambition as strong as my stomach.” Remember that line. It might be a cool one for a future project.
DW
The two distinctive memories I have of myself writing is when I was in elementary school and middle school. When I was in elementary school I was only writhing simple sentences and did not have to write as much. However, when I attended middle school then I had to write complex sentences and it was a lot of writing. In elementary I was between the ages of 6-11 yrs of age. In middle school as a writer I was between the ages of 12-13 years of age. In elementary the scene was good as a writer because my classmates was friendly and I didn’t have to worry about them bashing me, it was a very friendly environment. On the other hand, when I was in middle school if the writhing wasn’t good they would make front of me and laugh. The task of writing for elementary was writing simple sentences and the task of writing for middle school was writing narrative. responses to questions, and reflections. The two distinctive memories of writing are not connected to one another, expect for the fact it involves writing. It’s a possibility that I might reflect on my past experiences of writing in elementary and middle school in my current English 121 class.
I wonder what this reflection will lead to…
Thanks for the share and for being so honest about how mean kids can be sometimes!
Hi Johnnie,
I would like to read more about your feelings during the memories you describe.
I had been hospitalized at the time and found myself writing about a bedside surgery I had undertaken. After the percocet kicked in, I was able to relax a bit and for some reason I continued to write in this little notebook that I had kept with me to take notes for my job as a chef. It was an interesting experience. I had finished reading a bit of HP Lovecraft so I wanted to write something strange and full of words that looked like I ate a thesaurus for breakfast. It was very enjoyable. Some time after that I still had the little notebook and happened to be on a trip to recover from my time at the hospital. I read Koontz on my way to Texas as well as on my way back. I wrote about a road trip to Pennsylvania to solve a strange case that could only be done in 4 hours. Not as wordy, but I still enjoyed what I was doing. What I developed from these two experiences is an internal flow that I seem to follow whenever I write. A feeling that guides my next sentence or at least that is what I believe when I write.
Wow. I’m so interested in this line: “writing something strange that looked like I ate a thesaurus for breakfast.” I can really see the influence Koontz has in your writing as there is a bit of suspense in your rhythm.
Two distinctive memories I have of myself writing is first, I have always wrote, meaning since I knew how to write I always kept a journal of my life with the intent of having descriptive memories of every stage of my life. Second and last I started writing in Spanish when I was around 7 or 8 years old then switched to English when I was around 10 or 11 so It’s very interesting now when I look back to those journals how much my thoughts and my writing has changed. Most of the times I wrote about my day or my feelings, I found myself very comfortable at writing my feelings because it was a way for me to release emotion without having someone to judge me or give me a unwanted opinion. When I was around 9 or 10 years old I clearly remember my goal was to write on my journal every day or at least consistently with the purpose of keeping track of my life to later on in life, when all these feelings and moments are forgotten, be able to go back and see how my thought process was. These writing selves are connected to each other in a way that I found comfort in writing which made it easier for me to maybe write a paper for class or pick a class that requires a lot of writing and critical thinking without feeling like I’m torturing myself with all of these assignments. I don’t love writing about everything but I do like to write overall and reflect on my papers and my voice as a writer.
Thanks for sharing Estefania. I really think you’re onto something here– a lot of people who grow up journaling find writing later on in life not as painful. There’s a comfort you develop through journalling. I wonder if there’s a possible project wrapped up in this idea of journaling?
DW
Two distinctive memories I have of writing are when I was four and enrolled in kindergarten in a small South Chicago parochial school, and of myself as a teenager in the After School Matters program through the city. In the first instance, our teacher was strapped on resources, so we relied heavily on phonics lessons and journal exercises. We’d be given some assignment to write about a favorite animal or who we look up to. After devoting the required page in our notebook, we were free to write about whatever we wanted, so long as we were quiet. I took the opportunity to write a book about four friends, a talking hamster, and a magical quest. In my head, if a book like Freckle Juice could be published, anyone could be an author. In the second, I was paid to write for a summer in a program through the City and Columbia College. We would spend a good chunk of the day, which was five hours at the shortest, work-shopping, and then breaking off and spending an hour or so in silence. We would be urged to write and work on our final piece for performance, or just freewriting. I spent the summer writing and rewriting a short horror story based loosely on Irish folklore, and even had to read it aloud at the program’s end in the ASM “salon”. In both cases, there is a definite sense of ego, even bravado, in my approach to writing. I took it for granted that it was what I would make my fortune on later in life. However, as I sit in an English class, deeply entrenched in the career quicksand that is the New York beauty industry, I find my reality checked, and the bravado replaced by the resignation of balancing work and school.
“Career quicksand…” You’ve got such gripping images here. I’m especially taken by your stories of writing for fun and for others. I think we often forget how much “ego” is attached to writing and how that is an OK thing. What if we wrote things BECAUSE we wanted other people to read it? Why is that such a bad thing to want people to read our stories about hamsters?
DW
One memory that I have about myself writing is my time in class one. The teacher instructed the class to write about ourselves. This was the first time I had to write about anything using my own words. Another memory I have about myself writing was during my first national examination, where the question was to write about environmental pollution. We were suppose to write about the cause, effect and solutions to environmental pollution.
Thanks for sharing Prince. You point out something interesting– when is the first time we’re asked to write using our own words and not someone else’s? Is it possible some of us still are used to writing in someone else’s words? Or maybe, we’re used to writing FOR others instead of thinking about what we truly want to say?
DW
I was in second grade, the end of the school year taking the reading and writing state test, you have a time limit and this was my first year in America so I did not know English that well and definitely didn’t know proper writing. I struggled a lot during the test and of course the time limit had me really scared, I didn’t understand the topic that was asked to write about at the time due to lack of knowledge of the English language so it made it harder for me to write. The second memory is in high school and I am required to write a college essay about myself. Of course the first thing a person would write about is the struggles they have faced in life. My biggest struggle in my first few years in America was the language so i had written a whole page about how it affected me growing up and talked about the same moment in second grade where I thankfully had a teacher who helped me a lot and also spoke my first language which is Albanian. I believe they’re connected because people always improve daily on writing, whether its on social media, newspaper or in a classroom. I can see the development of myself throughout the years from second grade to graduating high school, it shows how much I have improved as a writer.
Thanks for sharing Mentor. I find it funny that so many of us remember our first writing experience in high school, writing that dreaded “college essay.” Why is that? We’ve written plenty of times before that, haven’t we? What is it about the college essay that makes it so memorable? Maybe for you it was being able to talk about your bilingualism. I wonder what it is for others?
DW
One distinctive memory I have had of writing would be when I was in the 7th grade. I was in US history class and I was asked to write a poem about slavery. I began to write the poem but instead of actually writing just a typical poem about my ancestors I wrote as if I were a slave back in 1856. I began to in dept description of the trauma women slaves endured. My teacher was by far impressed he looked at me with astonishment. Next memory would be when I wrote my last paper for an African American history course, it was one of the best papers I’ve ever wrote. My paper spoke on the different aspects of the prison industrial complex and how it effects the minority community. These two different memories are connected to one another because these writings were based off one personal narratives that helped me visualized the pain that a certain group has felt. Most of these selves does exist in the writer I am today. I really like to feel how the writer felt or at least try to feel how they felt so I can then explain my views on their opinion.
Thanks for sharing this Porshe. It seems both memories are related to race and identity. In the first memory, you imagined yourself as a slave to better communicate ideas; in the second, you wrote about prison and its impact on minorities. It’s important to recognize how writing sometimes can be a method of uncovering what it means to be. That is, what does it mean to be a slave? what does it mean to be African American? What does it mean to be a minority?
DW
writing is very important. Last semester I struggled in writing. In class when my professor told us to write an essay, I would have hard time understanding the concepts of what I have to write. Writing is something that people have challenge with.
Thank you Aktia. Writing is definitely a challenge. Maybe we can investigate what specifically about writing is challenging to better understand a possible solution.
DW
One distinctive memories I have of myself writing is when you start school and they teach you how write and sometimes the letters are big and sloppy and a struggle because you got to see what hand is more comfortable and how to hold a pencil. Second distinctive memory I have of writing is when I started to write essays and it was only 5 paragraph and like only 7 sentences. For the first memory I was in kindergarten and the feeling i felt when i wrote was mad and happy. mad because it was hard keeping it neat and straight line. and happy because i learn how to write my letters. Second memory i was in 5th grade and we was writing for practice exam. and i felt so anxious because i didn’t know how to start and essay and the structure. but then felt happy caused i learn and started getting better in it. These writing selves are connected to one another because it was the basic of writing and you start learning throughout the years.
Thank you Anabel. Do you ever wonder about the next generation’s handwriting? They’re taught to read and write using computers so much that I wonder if they’ll have as vivid details about the physical process of writing as you have noted here.
DW
Two distinctive memories I have of myself writing are when I was in 7th grade and when I was in 10th grade. When I was in 7th grade, I was a very shy 13 year old and I was getting to know more people in my class. Before the 7th grade I wasn’t interested in school for personal reasons. However, when I reached the 7th grade, I started becoming more interested. My teacher in 7th grade was named Ms. Edelson, she was one of the kindest people I have ever met. I remember borrowing books from her little library in the class and I picked up a book called The Cage. I remember writing about how the protagonist suffered in the book. I felt pity for her and I remember being sad when writing about the book. I was alone at home when writing this piece. I remember thinking what life was to people living in the Holocaust era. Another memory I have of writing is when I was 15/16 in my honors English class in high school. My English teacher, Mr. DeNunzio helped me improve my writing. One specific task I remember is when I read the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I remember I was in my class when writing about this book. I believe I was writing about the book itself. This book opened my eyes about the world we live in. I remember discussing with my teacher about the different worlds we live in. I consider myself a lucky person with many advantages such as clean water, clean clothes, food and education. This task was one of my favorite and tasks because I was very proud of my work. These two works connect to each other because in 7th grade I was beginning to learn how to love reading and writing and in 10th grade I was focusing on improving my writing skills since I already loved reading and writing. I definitely see these selves today, I still enjoy reading and writing and I am still focusing on improving myself.
Hey Rebeca, I think Ms. Edelson is what we’ll call a “literacy sponsor.” That is someone who played an important role in your writing/reading literacy. It’ll be great to get to learn about her a bit more as you continue to explore your literacy journey.
DW
A unique memory I can recall of myself writing is the earliest memory of me writing my first real paper in the 5th grade. I can picture my 10 year old self sitting on my desk next to my close friend, Joshua while listening to my then teacher, Mr.Acevedo. I can remember that classroom better than any classroom in middle school and even high school. It was a vibrant environment, the walls of that classroom and the school as well was always colorful and bright. We read many books throughout that school year and we were tasked with writing a paper on a particular book. At that moment, writing was the funnest its ever been in my life because of how new it was and how advanced I was for my age. A different memory of me writing was my freshman year when I was in ENG-111, I recall one moment during the semester where as a student, I felt as though the walls were collapsing and assignments were pilling up. I was up late in my room trying to finish the argumentative essay due the following day, it must of been around 3am when I finished because my next memory was waking up with notebooks and resources on my messy bed. These two memories connect because they show the path that I endured on the road to where I am today as a writer as well as a person. Honestly speaking, i think the chubby 5th grader connects more to who I am today because writing is becoming fun, once again.
Thanks Joel. I want to learn more about how you’ve made writing fun for you again, especially given how scary your 111 experience sounds.
DW
Looking back i can remember writing a paper on a civic action project during senior year and prompt responses on philosophy readings we did in class during my sophomore year. When writing my prompt answers for my philosophy homework I would usually have a thought about my answer during class. I would start dozing off from what was being said and trying to piece my ideas together before I would forget later on. I would just scribble down my ideas and save it to write it later for the next day when it was due. As always I waited last minute and begin to write my prompt answer before class which was my lunch break. I would rush my writing but sometimes it gave me the best writing because my hand would just keep going and adding to the paper. As for my civic action project paper it was supposed to be an eight page paper that i was supposed to do with my partner but i didn’t start doing it until the night before it was due. I remember being stressed out about this paper because I had begun a draft but never started many of the bodies. I thought it would not be a long night because my partner would help me but I was wrong. At one point I began to cry because i was so tired and just wanted to sleep but I knew I needed this credit in order to graduate and that I couldn’t give up. I was upset that y partner kept saying she was going to help and she never did, she wrote like a paragraph or two and just left the paper like that. I had finally finished the paper by 7am and I needed to show up to school to give the paper in. It was probably one of the worst but desperate writing I have ever done because it had so many mistakes. Both of these memories connect to each other because they show how last minute writing can go either really good or really bad. I feel that even today that writer still exists somewhat inside of me.
Jessica, I appreciate the theme here of last minute writing. We’ll read a piece later by Mike Rose where he talks about reasons last minute writing happens. I wonder if you’ll find some of his thoughts on writer’s block especially true.
DW
One memory I have of writing is of being in kindergarten; we were made to write when the class acted out. The more we misbehaved the more we were made to write before we could go outside for recess or even in place of it. The whole class had to write as a whole even if it was only one individual who refused to listen. I was about 4 and a pretty well behaved child, so being forced to write instead of play due to someone else’s actions made me angry and resent any time writing was put in front of me in school. Another memory I have of writing is actually of a college class I took in high school. The professor was a writer but not really a professor. He had a hard time hearing apposing opinions. I remember pouring a lot of effort into a particular assignment and being to that i needed to write it over because he didn’t like my stance on the topic. When I refused he gave me a failing grade. That made it hard for me to ever really take writing for a class seriously for a while.
Jalysa– that class sounds awful– I hate that writing was a punishment. Of course, that trains kids to think writing is always something negative when in fact it’s not. I wonder if you might work through the negative associations developed here in your literacy narrative.
DW
1. One distinct memory I have of writing was when I was 17. At the time, I didn’t know how to express my thoughts so I looked to films as an inspiration and found that I can write down anything I wanted as if I were a screenwriter writing my life out. I would write mostly in school because classes weren’t really interesting to me. I would have new ideas while I was writing another, it was as if each thought led to the other. My senior year stands out for me because I finally found something that I enjoyed and I was good at.
Another memory of mine was recent. I finally finished a story of mine that was sitting for 6 months. During that time I wasn’t motivated enough to think of how to end it and I would start writing several stories and leave them halfway done, I really don’y know why. I’m happy with how each turned out but I feel as if it could have been more.
Bryan, you’re a creative writer! In that case, a story is never really done which explains your feeling of wanting to do more in a piece. I hope you’ll share some of your creative pieces with us either through a major assignment or at the end of the semester for fun.
DW
Two distinctive memories I have of myself writing was in English 111 and in High school in my government class. At the time in high school i was 17 and i could remember that i felt isolated because i felt like my writing skills were inferior to my peers and I would constantly get writers block. At that that the assignment was to write a research paper on revolutions throughout history. My second memory was in English 111 where I had to write about different sub topics that relate back to the main topic. Similar to my high school experience i was getting writers block and seeing that everyone around me were basically set on what to do. Looking back at these two memories I can say that they are connected in which I doubted myself and my writing abilities while looking at others and comparing myself to them. However, these memories taught me that everyone is not the same and that if i put effort into my work i will see improvements because I got an A on my High school paper and a B on my paper in English 111.
You’ve unpacked an important feature of writer’s block– comparing ourselves to others. Often that is a recipe for writing torture. I often have to train my brain to say, “It’s just me writing, just me writing, just me writing.” This reminds me to focus on my writing first and comparing myself to others after the process is through.
DW
I remember when I was in elementary school where we were given a book with just the pictures connected to each other. The purpose of the assignment was to create your own story based on how we personally viewed the pictures. I was around 7 years old and extremely shy. I felt accomplished after finalizing my story because it was something that started like by the middle of the semester and finished it towards the end. A lot of work were put on to the story and receiving a perfect score was the best reward I could’ve had. The second flashback I recall about writing is when I was in junior-high. 11 years old with way more experience than before. So this was a final project that we were assigned to do. Basically, it was a fiction story in which I was a superhero and my goal was to save the world from an evil dragon. The connections these two writings had was that they were both self thought and where both really thought through. Well don’t get me wrong I still conserve one of the story and looking back at it they weren’t that good but I guess me being a kid I think I did really good.
S, what a cool exercise– I kind of want to use it in a composition class. Create a story using your own perception of the images in front of you. Thanks for the share!
DW
One memory I have of myself writing is when I was approximately 8 years old, I was in a classroom with about 25 students and 2 teachers. I was writing my opinion about a book, I don’t remember the name of the book but if i’m not wrong one of the character’s name was” Judy Moody”. I felt like I wanted to write about every small detail that I found interesting and all the fiction that was in it. I wrote 2 to 3 paragraphs and it was a class assignment for the same day. Another writing memory that I remember was when I was about 15 years old. I was in High School in my Biology class, there was about 28 students in the classroom and 1 teacher. In the beginning of the school year my Biology teacher gave the class a assignments to write about a specific type of germ or disease. The challenge was that it had to be 3,000 words. We had about 6 months to do the assignment but most of the classroom just decided to leave it for the last two weeks of class. My thoughts when writing this assignment was “Why did I leave this for last minute?” or “Why didn’t I divide this task and do it little by little?”
I would say that both of my memories are connected to one another because I had a specific amount of time for both task, I felt like I was under pressure. On the first memory I had only a short amount of time and it was only until the course time was up. The other memory I was under pressure and wanted to get things done before the deadline.
When was the last time you wrote without pressure? How do you think that piece of writing would be different from your bio paper? How can we have writing without pressure a class like ENG 121? No grades?
DW
I was in my 10th grade English class and we were writing poetry. It was a fun assignment as I enjoy writing poems. The classroom was filled with chattering voices and it didn’t feel like an assignment. I was surrounded by my friends as we were discussing what exactly we wanted to write about. I decided to write whatever that I had in my mind at the time. As I wrote my poem on a type of relationship, I felt as if I wrote my feelings down on paper. This type of writing was an escape/coping method for my feelings at that time. Another memory of myself writing is when I was assigned to free write for 30 minutes for my freshmen LEH 100 class. This assignment was not be done at home, with music, or technology. Therefore, my location of choosing was at the Quad in Lehman. It was a sunny day with no clouds in sight. Initially, I did not know what to write which led me to spend time writing absolutely nothing for a few minutes. As I observed the nature around me, I wrote my thoughts on life. The first things that came to mind. At the end of my writing, my ideas were not in sync. There were many ideas flowing around. These two memories are connected in some ways because I tend to write whatever is on my mind at the time.
Thanks for the share Fathima. Sometimes writing about nothing is SO important in getting us to the “some thing.”
DW
Two distinct memories that I have about writing is one time around a couple of years ago when I was in high school, my friends and I were super bored in our US history class so randomly we all decided to craft a segment of one topic to see if we can put all of our segments together. Another one, last year to be exact, I was home and I randomly decided to write a narrative I guess you can say but it wasn’t about me. It was almost like a classic hero story with your protagonist and antagonist and I wrote a couple pages of it but never really got to finish. Well for the first memory, I was in class sitting in a square table comprised of 4 different desk with only slightly varying sizes. We were sitting in these uncomfortable steel chairs with our hands holding our heads up fighting the urge of sleep as a wave of exhaustion hits us. Though we were different people, we all had that same look of wear and tear written all over our faces. Then my close friend next to me gives a small grin and opens his note book to the last page and we all hear a ripping sound as he tears a page off from his note book and gives us all one. He tells us “I know something we can do.” He tells us as our instructor is in the back of the room talking about the murder of JFK. We all give him a curious look resembling a pack of curious animals looking at a foreign object. “We can all write about one specific topic and attempt to put them together.” He says with his smile ever present across his face. We looked at each other and I said “Sure why the hell not.” After I dig through my book bag to take out a writing utensil since I didn’t bother taking one out from my black Jordan bag earlier due to my distaste of the class. After a couple of seconds of looking past my hoard of pennies that still through this day is still questioned by my best buds I acquired one. They all looked confused as a topic was not really established until my friend that came up with the idea. “What if we write about the school but instead make some of us teachers and see how the different classes would be ran?” We all nodded in agreement and they quickly began to write but I looked at my blank piece of paper completely confused. How would a class of mine be ran? I stared at the paper that was a perfect image of my brain but eventually I found my stride and began to fill line after line of these new found ideas. I was 17 then. Last year however when I was 18 I was stuck in my room waiting for a package that my mother was waiting for. I was in my pretty small living room and my even smaller couch with a leather bonded notebook and began to fill the paper word for word of my fantasy world. Speaking of dungeons and writing of tales of old and new.
Hi Christian, thanks for sharing! I’m so impressed with how many prompts you and your friends were able to create for each other. I have a hard time coming up with ONE prompt for a class, you’ve got at least six here. My favorite is to imagine the way a class would run if you were the teacher.
DW
1. What are two distinctive memories you have of yourself writing?
Born in a country where English is not the first language, it has been tremendously an uphill task in my life to embrace the mechanics about the language entirely. I was initially introduced to reading and writing in my vernacular language. At the time, it seemed easy navigating through the vernacular language content, understanding the the content and flow of message. Later on in my mid childhood life, English was introduced as the third language. At my local school, i , never had good teacher to ensure i was well prepared for the language. This was either impeded by the fact that the teachers at one time of another used the local language to explain the content.
Thanks for the share, Erick. I think your experiences with English remind me of my frustrations when learning Spanish. I felt like the teacher kept teaching in ENGLISH and it made it so difficult to grasp the language. I believe what we both were frustrated by was the lack of immersive learning– that is, we weren’t immersed in the language, an important part of learning a language.
DW
It was my first exam in New York I were in full class of 32 students med-school. I was looking everywhere because i did not know what to do and felt like everyone in my class was looking at me. I felt so scared i just wanted to go home because did not known how write English and sad at the same time. I saw how other students were doing the exam and I was a box with no way out. Since years when by never felt like writing were my favorite part of English class. I remember my first teacher in high school, she used to to pushed me do my best and to think out of box and made me feel great about writing but, sometime when back to the scared places that does not goes way.
Hi Reina, I want to learn more about this sentence: sometime when back to the scared places that does not goes way.
What are the scared places?
DW
Hi DW,
So that place for me is when I am writing I try so hard to do it right that I feel like I lose my way and sometime get scared of writing too much just like when I was little learning how to write.
How interesting that the “scared place” for you brings you back to when you were just learning to write.
1. Two distinctive memories I have about myself writing is when I wrote a 14-page paper in my first college writing class, and when I had a group paper in my high school.
2. When I wrote the 14-page paper, I was a college freshman, and we were writing a research paper. I wrote mine about autism and inclusion to the real world. The 14-pages were a jump from what I did since high school, because a majority of my high school essays were about five paragraphs. I was a mathematics and computer science double major at that time, and did not expect an introductory class to make the students write that long of a paper. I over-thought and procrastinated, until I got help from the Writing Center and even my professor. My group paper was about whether technology is enhancing or hurting student’s education. I was a high school junior at that time. I did not have a problem writing the paper, but the main difficulty was that only me and another one of my group-mates were the only ones to participate. However, the teacher gave everyone equal credit, but everyone passed with an A. It made me wonder how some students can get away with minimal work.
3. The connection between the two assignments is that there is conflict that has been resolved. Anything a person does will have a conflict. Sometimes it takes a process to overcome barriers.
4. This assignment does not have many of the difficulties or conflicts related to my previous assignments. However, this is my first assignment, and I do not know yet what the outcome will turn out to be. Once I do, I will use the critiques, and make sure to fix my writing for my next assignment(s).
A 14-page paper, that’s intense! I love the idea that both pieces dealt with problem solving. Does that mean writing then can solve problems? I think so!
DW
My first memory of writing takes me to a long time ago. I was almost nine years old when I decide to write down every single frustration and feeling that I could not understand or have an explanation. I remember sitting on my bed thinking “why is it so difficult for me get accepted and included at the school activities along with other boys?” I got an answer almost twenty years later.
I used to plan ideas, games, and even I asked my father for toys that I could use to play with others, but the excitement did not last too long; at the end I ended playing alone. Something in me was different, even though I looked like other boys, I was not like them. Finally, I accepted it; I stopped my efforts to be part of the school herd, and my writing became my relief, my world.
Suddenly, I was eighteen, and I was not writing as much I used to do, but something happened. I met someone, someone who made me reflect about myself, about the missing parts I did not want to see or unconsciously I was hiding. That event pulled me again to write. I wrote for hours, asking questions as if in a way my words could create a path for my answers. I am still remembered, the excitement I had that night. My heart was pumping hard and fast like if someone inside me was knocking on a door desperate to get in, or in this case to get out. I stopped my writing, and I went to the kitchen looking for where my dad kept his wine; I found a bottle and I poured that red liquid inside an empty Coca-Cola can, in an attempt to avoid being caught by my Father. I still hear the music I was listening to that night, using it rhythm as a compass for the sips of wine; it was delicious! I thought, and I went to the balcony with my writing again. Time passed, and my writing became part of my days, like a prayer needed to be done every night before bed. I recall, one special time I wrote a letter that sounded more like a statement. It was my first time writing openly, expressing my feelings, and it was dedicated to someone other than me, my grandma. I spent half of the night writing it. I was away for the first time, and I missed her, missed our goodnight routine that always ended with a warm kiss on my cheek. The feeling was so strong, that I found myself with the need to write her; I did, and the result was a four pages letter where I explain her the reasons why I love her and why she should stay in my life. I encouraged her with my letter to defy time and stay present in my life because I was in denial to the fact that one day she would not be there for me. Waiting to say welcome home, or just standing on the main entrance of the house to give me a hug and a kiss. I must confess that I cried writing that letter to her, even now, that she lost her fight with time, I still hurt as well that day when losing her was just a possibility.
Another significant moment where I needed of my writing, not only to express myself, but more to drown my sadness, was almost eleven years ago when my mother passed away. That day, I was alone in her room, everybody was downstairs waiting to go to the mortuary. I did not want to go, so I took my notebook and I started to write all the things I could not tell her. I remember writing about all those moments I was waiting to enjoy with her suddenly became a dream. I wrote asking her for forgiveness, for all the moments I did not listen to her, for the moments I was so tired, and I went to bed without saying goodnight and the times I did not tell her how much she meant to me. I remember feeling lost, but above all feeling guilty for not being aware of our time.
Looking back to those memories, I see a change in my writing. Like layers of skin, they became thinner through the years until my letters started to speak, a voice without fear to rejection or judgment, my voice. Now, every time I sit down to write, either personal or a school assignment, my voice is present, breaking all the stigmas and past stressors that one day made me write, hiding my true self, denying my identity, today it made me talk about them without doubts.
The writing that represents me now is simple, direct, and maybe with a little of that metaphoric comparison that my grandma used to use. Maybe that’s me, in an attempt to keep her present. I always have believed that everything in life happens for a reason, even when those experiences are not very clear at the moment, always it is for a reason and almost always directing us to a specific place. Now, when I think about my writing I can say: since the first time it related, was a growing process, and a necessary one. Where I need to find the exact words to be heard, the strength to believe, and the necessary fantasy to fight for what I wanted. All my writing has been the same in core, only modifying it with more sophisticated words and phrases. Making it richer in structure and cleansed of misspelled words. Today, I still write, and not only as a mechanism of self-help, I do it more as a way to express to the world and be part of it. I have been growing since my first paper and I know I have much more to learn; the only thing that remains is my umbrage with time.