i wish you were a stranger i could disengage

My interpretation of things has, more oftehn that not, been a little different from what is defined as ‘normal’. Growing up, my friends never found it fitting to stick to rigid boundaries at the risk of denying yourself total creative control.

What does this mean and why is it of importance to you?

Well, I guess it’s not. It’s just that the moment I received the topic ‘Saying Goodbye’, I thought of writing an essay about bidding farewell to sixteen years of pretentious “love of writing”.

At the risk of sounding unnecessarily defiant, I think people have always rejected the standard ‘IT WAS A BRIGHT SUNNY DAY. THE GOLDEN-BROWN SKY WAS PENETRATED WITH A RED BEAM OF SUNLIGHT’ openings to compositions. They seem void of sincerity.

Writing should come naturally. Having weathered an education system that has its standard formulae for success. I have turned into someone afraid of rejection - I am constantly afraid of expressing what I really think for fear of failing.

Although writing has been one of the true constants in my life, (this is the part on my composition where the ink is smudged. Fuck.) experiences of being a disappointment have made me distance myself from it. I am slowly letting myself understand that letting go of something like that may very well be beneficial.

This doesn’t mean I will stop writing, obviously. I have to write really politically correct pieces for school but I guess that’s fine.

I guess I’m saying goodbye to completely exposing my thoughts through writing. I hate that. I hate the knowledge of having someone use big words to write about things they don’t feel. I fear being a complete let-down. Imagine picking up an essay entitled ‘Saying Goodbye’ and being treated to this really long emotional yet detached chunk of words about a fifteen year old girl hating the hold something maybe inanimate has on her. That sucks. And you didn’t ask for it. Sorry. Well, not really.

This isn’t really a conventional essay. It doesn’t have a plot, or characters, or an ending. Wait. Actually, it has all of that. It’s also a true representation of my thought-stream when I received the topic, so score! I’m on-topic!

I am bidding farewell to the notion that my writing has me at an intimate position with my flaws displayed openly. This maybe ironic, but so is the term ‘creative writing’ in this context, right?

If I could say anything to the words that have kept me company these few years, I would thank them and express my regret, “You have been a constant comfort for me. Throughout my short existence so far, you have been (besides my family, music and religion) the thing that has gotten me through long teenage days when I questioned my ability and worth. You have been the only way I could let my heart cry without actual tears trickling, blood-like, down my ribcage. I’m sorry for letting you down, and sorry for, at times, using you to express negativity, hurt and anger. If there’s one thing I could leave you with, it would be the temporarily-eternal cathartic release you have given me. I gope you will be used for good by other writers, more prolific and descrptive than I. Sorry. Gotta say goodbye now. See you (in my textbook, on the bus, in birthday cards, on posters, in examination booklets, in receipts, in IOUs…)”

My tangled and dependent relationship with writing has to end some day and although I dread that morning, I cannot help but be in anticipation of what happens after I have found it in myself to let go the centre of my human universe - writing and the words it births.

After all, I have seen the look on my mother’s face as she walks in on me crying over a tear-soaked paper, filled with my (at this point I use my primary school calligraphy) everchanging handwriting, expressing my hurt and my joy. I do not think I can find it in myself to stand naked, void of expression yet filled with emotion, on a piece of paper with my heart and its counterparts hanging out for all to see any longer.

But maybe I should continue trying.

I mean, English Teacher, today you called me a disappointment. Dude, what’s next?

Ugh.