Why Do You Write?
I write to survive
I started writing in a Minnie Mouse journal when I was eight and I never really stopped. It became something that I had to do.
I write because some things just stick with me. I am a highly sensitive person. I am an INFJ personality type to a T. INFJ personality is one of the sixteen different personality types outlined in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. INFJ’s are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging.
I write because things stick to me and burrow into my skin. I must get them out to survive. I am hypersensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, even when I don’t want to be. I’m a perfectionist and I obsess over insignificant events for months or years. Writing is the best form of free therapy I’ve found. It helps me clear out my head and find my quiet. I find myself again when I write it all out.
Some things just stick with you. Like when you ride your bike over to your best friend’s house like you always do as a kid and ring the doorbell not noticing all the cars in the driveway. Her grandma comes out and very gently tells you that it is your friend’s birthday party today and she will have to play another day. You hear the kids all squealing in the backyard as you ride back home. It sticks with you, so you write about it.
Like when you don’t understand the anger that you grew up with. You don’t understand mental illnesses. Or the rules. The standards.
You don’t understand purity ceremonies pledging your virginity to god, or a church, or the man on the stage, or someone in exchange for a silver ring with two dangly hearts at age twelve. The man on the stage reminding everyone that god needs their 10% tithe on Sunday. It sticks with you, so you write about it.
Like when the man (boy) you thought you were going to marry moves out of the condo where he lived with you and never speaks to you again. You see the professional photos splattered all over Facebook of him and his new girlfriend a few weeks later. He doesn’t think you are worth any sort of closure, and so eventually you believe him. The pain is unbearable. It sticks with you, so you write about it. You write about it for ten years.
Like when you can’t understand how he could break your heart. You’re 17 and perfect. Black hair, blue eyes that change in the sun, freckles, red lips. You can’t understand how he could hurt you because you’re beautiful. You’ve been told that’s all you need to get everything you want.
Like when he says he’s going to kill both of you while he’s driving, speeding up to 90 but you still love him.
Like when you walk across the stage graduating college with your bachelor’s degree and your family is watching in the crowd at the huge arena. I had dropped out of high school four years prior with no intention of ever even attending college. It was a proud moment. It sticks with you, so you write about it.
Like being a new 22-year-old mother sitting on the couch looking at this tiny human that you created. Being a mother in your own apartment, on your own couch in your pajamas with a five-week-old baby. You’ve never felt this type of all-consuming happiness before.
Happiness while simultaneously being completely terrified that you now have this huge responsibility. The endorphins you get from holding that baby that you birthed. It’s a type of euphoria that no drugs, alcohol, or relationship could ever produce. It sticks with you, so you write about it.
When you remember all that dark. The things you can’t remember and the things that you can’t forget even when you try so desperately to.
When the doctor asks if you want the police called.
When you watch your parents getting older.
When you want to rewind and fix it all.
When you sacrifice your life so that your children are happy and healthy and know there is nothing more important than them.
When your cousin who was one of your best childhood friends doesn’t respond to your texts as an adult. When you’re made to feel you aren’t good enough, you’re just too different. It sticks with you, so you write about it.
Like when you hear Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell sing together for the first time.
It all sticks with me, so I write.
Like when your wealthy boss says some of the most disgusting things you’ve ever heard so nonchalantly. When she tells you she hates young people, Democrats, Northerners, poor people, African American people, but most of all-fat people. And you’re too shocked to even count how many of those groups you belong to.
When she wants you to call the number on the “Sold” sign to ask the real estate agent if the house next door was sold to an African American family because “I’ve never lived in a mixed-race neighborhood and I’m not going to start now.” It stuck with me, so I wrote about it. (I also told her very explicitly how I felt about her and quit shortly after).
Like when your husband who struggled with his addictions for most of the ten years you’ve known him is now leading his Wednesday night meetings. It sticks with me, and I write about it.
When you know you won’t write that book that you’ve always wanted to write. But you remember that your father told you to believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re letting him down. Again.
So, I write about it all.
Tell me, why do you write?
(Thanks to my Aunt Karen and all the others who have encouraged me over the years to share my writing.)