Remember in high school or middle school, everyone was kind of figuring out what exactly they were good at? Remember- some of your friends discovered they could draw incredibly lifelike faces, some of them became co-captains of the basketball team, some had the loudest yell on the cheering squad, some took center stage in the drama club, and some stole the show in the music department. I remember trying everything out… and being terrible at every single one. I couldn’t be on stage, I couldn't throw a ball, I couldn't draw a stick figure, and I couldn’t be part of a team. What I could do was write. I remember realizing I wasn't just writing; I was good at writing.
I wrote poetry and I wrote essays and I wrote articles. I had journals stacked like sky scrapers next to my laundry bin. I wrote papers for friends and I edited reports for classmates. I had pink pens and beautiful notebooks in my purse at any given moment. Every discarded receipt at the grocery store I worked at had a poem scribbled in cursive on it. I read memoirs and plays and thesis statements and novellas like they were food and I was starving. I learned monologs and recited soliloquies. I turned every experience into a metaphor.
I went to college to continue this. I became an English major far before I went to the registrar and formally decided this. At Accepted Students Day, I met one of my English professors and he asked my mother, “are you okay with this… with your daughter becoming an English major?” Like it was a death sentence. He asked it in the same tone of voice a vet would ask if someone was sure they wanted to put their pet down.
But, I was sure that this was what I wanted to do. I joined poetry club and I competed in slams. I ran workshops at local high schools for the kids going through exactly what I had described. I published articles in magazines and our school’s news paper. I took every English class I could and I read every book I was assigned. I cried when Helena confessed her love to Demetrius in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and I screamed the first time Stanley hit Stella in "A Streetcar Names Desire." I want to have that affect on people. I want to write words that are as haunting as Vladimir Nabokov and as troubled as Tennessee Williams. I want to be like them. I want to be a writer.
I went to school for a degree in English because I want to be a writer. I don’t want to be a teacher, or adverts writer, or an editor. I want to be a writer. Don’t tell me it is unrealistic and don’t tell me I’ll be a starving artist. I want to become a writer so what I’ll do is become a writer. I am sure the finance major sitting next to me will be far better of someday… I do not need you to remind me of that. I cannot pass a math class or play guitar, but what I can do is write. And as you finish this; you will realize… I am a writer.
