“I write because there are some things I’m afraid to say out loud” was the quote in my senior yearbook, a string of words nestled beneath a picture of a girl who seems familiar and alien all at the same time, like a face remembered from a dream. I write because of who I am, because I am the youngest child in my family, because I was always the quiet one, because that was never who I was. I write because real life has no justice, no mercy, no philosophical basis of right or wrong, just indifference. I write because it makes me believe in God. I write because I want to believe in God. I write because I’m too shy to speak in public and because I adore the sound of silence, of the stillness of empty spaces which are filled with thoughts and memories and bare walls.
I write because I am not instinctual. I write because I need time to think, to order my thoughts on a page like a squad of reformed juvenile delinquents, all one drink away from going back to the clink. I write because I need to become a better person. I write because it makes me a better person. I write because I love the simplicity and complexity of words. I write because I want someone to fall in love with me. I write because I am in love. I write because, if I don’t, I worry he’ll fall out of love with me. I write because I am afraid of death. I write because I want to matter. I write because I don’t want to forget. I write because others have forgotten and I know how easy it would be for them to forget me.
I write because I love the feel of pen against paper, my fingers against keys, and because those seven years of piano lessons were a shameful waste. I write because we have always written, because these squiggles are a writhing tether back to a past we have no other way to visit. I write because I want to travel in time. I write because the sun comes up every day, and if he can do it, so can I, I can get up in the dark and create something to light the way. I write because, every day, I learn something new about the universe. I write because I need to hold on to the awe-inspiring ordinary events of the everyday. I write because I like reading my writing. I write because I like the thought of you reading. I write because you read it.
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Robin Jeffrey 