Growing up, I had a unique combination of being shy while also badly-behaved. I was curious, and, naturally, a little bit annoying. I had chunky blue glasses, and I was the tallest girl in the classroom until I eventually peaked at 5’5”. “Why?” was my favorite word, and I wouldn’t hesitate to ask it! Even in inappropriate settings, because I had no situational awareness. 

Writing came easily to me. In elementary school, I won the end-of-year “Best Writer” certificate three years in a row. My high school superlative was “Most Likely to be a Famous Writer.” My dad once told me that me choosing not to write would be like Muhammad Ali choosing not to box. That hurt my feelings, and I couldn’t tell why. 

Writing was something that I could use to make myself easier to understand, because, at the risk of sounding corny, I have felt hard to understand for most of my life. Personal essays allowed readers to see me for who I was beyond their initial perceptions. 

In college, I obviously chose to major in English Writing. Thinking back, this is probably when I started to fall out of love with it. 

We have so many talented writers on campus. I quickly realized I was no longer the best. In fact, I may be terrible! 

As late assignments started piling up–even as a senior, they still pile up, and I feel like I never fully adapted to a college workload–I got more and more discouraged. I would write whatever got me a passing grade, and I faded into the background as a below-average student. I write for fun, it doesn’t work. It feels like nails on a chalkboard. 

The fear is, maybe I only wrote because it was what I thought I was supposed to do.

I recently had a meeting with one of my favorite professors in the English department. I was listing my concerns to her, and she said words that were equally freeing and terrifying: “You don’t have to write anymore, if you don’t want to.”

My first thought was that I still have to finish my major, so she’s technically wrong, but she had a point. Why does this have to be my creative outlet? I’m not chained to writing personal essays, but consciously choosing to give it up entirely feels like a death sentence. 

So, I concluded that I do love writing–maybe just not right now, or at least, not in the way I used to. I like writing scripts, and talking about media critically. I like interviewing people, and researching. I guess I’m just not in the mood to get personal. 

Maybe I finally don’t feel the need to justify my every action to you through recounting my own inner dialogue. I now need to understand the world as I see it. But, one day, I have faith that I will inhale and exhale again. You’ll all hear from me when I do.