Katherine Stathulis

From preschool all the way through senior year, I went to school with a kid named Noah. We weren’t really friends but it always worked out that our last names fell right next to each other in alphabetical order, so we had many, many years of assigned seats and hall lockers next to each other. Noah’s parents were somewhat of local celebs in my hometown, and his mom was very publicly diagnosed with breast cancer when we were in elementary school. I went to her funeral in eighth grade and that was the first one I had ever been to. There’s now a breast cancer research center named after her in my hometown that I used to drive by every day.

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This May, 6 and a half years after that funeral, I found myself in that breast cancer research center with my own mom, shopping for wigs before her chemotherapy started. And I know now you’re thinking is this girl really talking about cancer in her Why I Write essay, this isn’t what anyone asked for, it’s just supposed to be a cute story about how she always loved writing or whatever. This essay isn’t about cancer, my mom finished chemo and is thankfully fine now and I don’t want to dwell on it to long or I will start crying in this Starbucks.

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This essay is more about how everything I just wrote I’ve pretty much never said out loud. I didn’t tell any of my friends at home that my mom was sick, and I haven’t told any of my friends at school either. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t like talking about pretty much anything, but I can write about it. I hate talking to people about anything remotely personal so much that I never even told my closest friends about this pretty significant thing that happened, but I can sit here and write about it on a relatively public platform completely unfazed.

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I am so shy. Like painfully shy, it’s embarrassing and you would think I would have grown out of it by now but I hate talking to people and I hate talking about feelings or emotions or anything personal at all. And not in an angsty Tumblr “I’m so quirky because I hate everyone” way, more of a “I’m literally terrified of judgment and showing any vulnerability” way (woah that was super therapy session I apologize). Because of this, it is so much easier for me to convey my thoughts and personality in writing. In my high school English classes, I realized not only were the papers where I used more of a personal voice as opposed to academic papers were the ones I did the best on, but I also felt as though I was communicating with my teachers much better that way than I ever would be able to face to face. I’ve always said that my voice is one of my biggest strengths in my writing. When I’m not doing formal research based papers, I feel like I do a pretty good job of incorporating my personality into the paper (or at least I hope I do, because I have spent a lot of time claiming to do so).

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Because of this, I believe my writing is mostly useful and good to myself (is that selfish?). I don’t know that my writing has really helped anyone else out all that much, but it helps me broadcast my thoughts in ways I otherwise can’t. And not in a super cliché ~express myself~ way, but more of a “I don’t have the ability to do this in real life” way. I’m able to articulate thoughts and ideas through writing that I wouldn’t be able to speaking.

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Writing matters to me because it’s the only way I can communicate certain things. But if you’re not like me, and have normal interpersonal relationships, writing still matters. Writing matters because no matter who you are or what you do, you’re going to have to write. While of course some majors and careers are more writing heavy than others, everyone has to do some amount of writing, so you should probably have some idea of what you’re doing. Whether it’s speeches or reports or even just emails, you will always be writing. More so, your writing can often be someone’s first impression of you. Whether it be communicating through e-mail or through a blog post, people may know your writing before they know you. Your writing is a representation of yourself when yourself can’t physically be talking to everyone at all times. Writing is the most basic way of communicating with people (how many times will I use the word communicate in this essay)…we all owe it to ourselves and to each other to appreciate writing and work on our own writing abilities. I write because it’s my best tool of communication, and now having said that, I hope I’ve communicated that pretty well to you through this essay (and if I didn’t, please just save my feelings and pretend I did).