Lines & Memories - A Timeline

I grew up writing. So did a lot of other people. I’m not saying I’m special, because I grew up writing, I’m just saying that’s how I grew up.

At my babysitter’s house, I would practice writing the alphabet on large chart paper. Tedious. Did this teach me the alphabet, or did it teach me tracing and imitation? There were lines, curves, and circles. It wasn’t art. I had no patience. In elementary school, I kept daily journals in hand-me-down marble composition books. There was a mixture of practice the alphabet and “what are you doing this weekend?” type prompts. In third grade, I learned cursive, or as the more professional will call it, script. Much like writing the alphabet on large chart paper, it was more curves and circles with a few lines. It still wasn’t art, and, in my handwriting, it looked more like a frazzled EKG than “the Declaration of Independence”. In third grade, I was told that cursive will be the most important skill I learn, because I will only be allowed to write in cursive. I was scared, because my cursive was very bad. How could I be professional if my cursive was illegible? With fifth grade, I learned typing. My previous encounters with computers were computer games like Reader Rabbit and Putt Putt, but those didn’t require correct finger placement on a keyboard. To beat Reader Rabbit, you just needed to know how to click the mouse and use an index finger. Middle school saw more intensive journals (“Is Romeo a STATIC or DYNAMIC character?), BCRs, and a new language, Spanish. In high school, I was introduced to the trauma of 3 page essays and procrastination. When it came time to go to college, it was obvious I should do something related to English, but what should I do exactly?

I picked English and Secondary Education, because I knew I wanted to teach. What I didn’t know, however, was I didn’t want to teach public school. I made it halfway through teaching my full-time internship, before I started looking at grad school. I decided grad school was going to be the next move for me, because I wanted to teach at a collegiate level. The education in public schools is crucial and beneficial, but the education I experienced at Towson University taught me more about why I love writing. Halfway through my final semester at Towson, my supervisors met with me, and told me they were removing me from my teaching internship. They cited “a lack of professionalism,” but what they meant was I was wasting their resources by not interviewing with local schools or taking the Praxis exam. In my mind, I decided grad school was the next step. In their mind, my decision meant I didn’t care about teaching. In my second take of my final semester I took creative non-fiction. Prior to taking this class, my writing was based off requirement, analysis, and research. The three page papers of high school were nightmares of the past that turned into 18 page reports of Baba Iaga and rooms with a view. Creative non-fiction, and more importantly, my professor, taught me writing could be fun even though it was required. I enjoyed writing and analysis (I really did, I’m weird), but I learned a lot by writing about myself. I would read essays by other authors and imitate their writing style. This taught me what type of writing I liked. I learned how to properly use footnotes, how to write minimalist, and how to incorporate experience and identity into my writing. By writing about depression, I learned how to manage and express my own struggles. Writing about anti-gay graffiti on fences helped me connect with my identity. Looking at the way my clothing choices and my daily habits have changed showed me how much more independent and comfortable I have become. My biggest weakness with creative writing is how little time I have spent doing it. I have been writing my whole life, but creative writing is a mere three months of work compared to my 22 years of life.

I have used my writing to learn about myself and to educate others. When I write, I want to not only teach myself about who I am, but I want to teach others too. It is easy for me to express myself through writing. I find writing to be a natural way to bring language to experience. It’s hard to talk about myself, because I have to find someone who wants to listen to me talk about myself, but writing about myself is purely personal and cathartic. Sometimes I will share my writing, but other times it is pushed aside to work on or uncover later. My hope is to keep writing. If I’m meeting new people, doing new things, and traveling to new places, I want to write about it. I can document with pictures, but pictures require you to remember too much about experience. In a picture, I know location. In writing, I know location, emotion, detail, and specifics. My writing doesn’t have to make me famous, it just needs to help me remember.