A reflective draft

My therapist lets the words drop from her mouth like atomic bombs. “It’s sad that you don’t have a place for you to express your true feelings.” I feel my mouth open and nothing comes crawling out. I think that maybe I can come back with a statement that isn’t serious, but she’ll jump on it like a kitten discovering plastic bubble wrapping for the first time. She knows all my comebacks and knows that I dig deep holes and sprinkle my feelings inside where they’ll never see the sun ever again. And so I sit and keep all the words that ever existed locked up until I found a place for me to be comfortable to let them free.

...

Death & Perspective is everything its course title suggests it is. But it doesn’t speak all. Not only do we learn about death and dying, we also learn how to enjoy life. I tried to grasp onto the last topic of learning, but was unsuccessful. I tried to make myself believe that I did grasp it, but when I saw the young man stretched out dead upon the slab of metal, I realized that I did not.

The reason I signed up for the course was not because of the field trips to interesting places, but because I was going to give up on life itself. I was taking this course for a road map to death – to see what my body was going to do while it was dying. To write out my living will just incase everything didn’t happen according to the plan and I was living on machines. This was going to be the class that led me into a comfortable coffin with hopefully nice soft satin on the inside. By the end of the course, I found myself questioning my line of thinking and actually getting help.

By writing the essay, I was also able to release my feelings and finding a home for them. I realized that writing can take you places that maybe you weren’t even ready for. That it can open wounds and sew them shut. This is the beginning of a journey that will open myself and realize that it is okay to be who I am.

My Writing Process

Was there a point in your writing when you almost forget it was an assignment?
What was the subject you were writing about? What was your experience?

As I was writing my personal essay/memoir, I let the words flow from me freely. I didn’t view the topic I was writing about as a paper that I had to turn in, but something that I felt that I needed to write and let go. If I began to think that the assignment was something that I had to submit for a grade, I’ll feel the pressure and probably not turn in a good paper. Or maybe I would have.

In the back of my mind was the goal of writing a decent paper that would receive a pretty good decent grade. But for the most part, I approached my personal essay as something that I would write to get published somewhere. I liked writing it. I liked the way it read. I liked reading it after I wrote down those words. That last part is the most important thing to me. If I don’t like reading the paper I wrote, don’t receive any joy from it, then it’s not a good paper.


Describe a point where you got stuck – where you wished you had a different subject

I got stuck when I thought I was being too personal. For the most part, I don’t like delving underneath my calm and pleasant exterior that I like to showcase to the world. I like to keep any of my shadows out of sight – from others and from myself, which I suppose isn’t too healthy. One of my group therapists told me the other day that it was “sad that I don’t have a place for myself to express my true feelings” and she’s write. I don’t. So when I was faced with trying to find that place within those pages of that paper, it was hard for me.

I put the paper aside for a few days. I thought about changing the topic to an easier one that didn’t become as personal as the paper I was writing then. But I felt that I would cheat myself out of writing a paper that would release most of the feelings that I had inside and splash them outward. And so, I kept on.

Describe what you learned from yourself

Even though at certain points the paper felt too heavy for me to keep on writing about, I learned that I could actually write about the subject.

I was in another class (Drug Use & Abuse) and wanted to write a paper about antidepressants. I never did. In fact, I now have an F in the class for not completing that paper. I felt as though it was too hard for me to write about in that moment of life. I was depressed still and was not on any medication. Writing about something so close was difficult for me. Researching depression and reading what the “scholarly” individuals thought about the matter was too, too much.

I never heard of creative nonfiction. I had this image of nonfiction as boring literature that only had the facts spelled out for you. But the ability to create something that could read like Stanton’s piece about Zion is beautiful. You are not just giving the reader facts about the subject you are writing about, but you are using your words to create the image you want the reader to envision within their minds.

What I learned about writing

There are many different types of writing skills and genres. That writing can help scope out your hurt and pain and happiness and calmness and create something that can help not only yourself, but the reader.

Thinking about audience and form? Became a more reflective writer?

Before this class, I really didn’t think about my audience when I wrote. I solely thought about whether I myself like the writing I developed. If I liked it, then okay. But now, I think of whether or not my words are good. Especially with nonfiction. If I want to publish a piece as a creative nonfiction piece, then I would go back and wonder if I made a point that I wanted to create for the reader to grasp.