Why I Write

I believe the first time I ever wrote, really wrote: about my feelings, my thoughts, everything, was in fourth grade when my teacher made us all buy journals and write in them every day. I still have mine. The first thing I ever wrote in there was about how mad I was that my best friend and I had bought the same notebook. The rest of that one is blank and all my other fourth grade writing is in a different one. One that did not match my best friends.

Why do I write?

I write because my teachers tell me to.

Why do I write?

I write because sometimes it is the only way I can think straight.

Because sometimes putting pen to paper is an easier way communicate than trying to talk. Because thinking through my pen helps me organize my thoughts, better than thinking to myself. Because writing is my way of expressing anything and everything that I need to, and because my paper is sometimes the only thing that will not talk back or question what I have to say.

Asking why I write is like asking why I breathe. Without writing, I would have so much bottled up emotion, so many stories I will end up forgetting. So many words left unsaid…

I write because writing is sometimes the only thing I can turn to when I have a bad day, or an amazing one. Writing is a way of letting everything I have to say out without actually having to tell anyone. I can reveal secrets; I can share my hopes and dreams. And I can say exactly what I’m thinking without judgment and I can be whoever I want to be.

That day when someone was just awful to me and I wanted to tell them exactly how I felt? Writing lets me do that. That time when I was completely and utterly at a loss for what to do and needed someone to turn to? Writing let me do that. That time when I had the best day of my life and absolutely could not wait to share it with someone? Writing let me do that too.

Writing lets me complain, lets me cry, lets me laugh, and lets me smile without ever asking why, even though I typically explain. 

Writing is my way of sharing without sharing. A secret I want no one to know, and yet I cannot keep to myself: I tell it to my writing. A person who has done me wrong that I want to yell at but can’t: I yell at them in my writing. My writing is my best friend: it knows everything there is to know about me. It is my safe place to spill my guts and let everything out that I have been keeping in for far too long. Writing is my best friend.

Do I write as often as I should? No, I don’t. Do I read other people’s writing as often as I should? Not nearly enough. Do I turn in my school writing assignments on time? I absolutely do not. But by no means, does that mean that I do not love to write.

Writing is something very personal for me, something I have to want to do. When I get assigned something for school, I usually can’t just sit down and write. But when I have something I need to say, and no one to say it to, writing is all I can think to do. 

Whether it is a song, a poem, an article for the school newspaper, or rambling on about nothing in a journal or a blog post, putting pen to paper and just writing is therapeutic. 

I have an entire basket full of journals sitting on my dresser. A lot are empty, waiting to be filled. Most of them though, are full. Whether it’s from fourth grade, seventh grade, freshman year, a mix of different years, months of no writing, or day after day of writing, they’re full. I will never ever get rid of them. Because that is the one place where every memory that was ever important enough, every thought I couldn’t share with everyone else, and every single reason why I write is stored. 

~Melissa Tamar