Here I am!

Paper#3 (Draft#1)

Melanie Stanfill

November 19, 2008

ENG 319- Fall 08

Paper #3 Rough #1

The Power of Writing

As I sit here thinking of what pivotal moment in my writing life has affected me so much that it would be worth sharing with my class, I begin to reflect on my feelings toward writing itself. I do not enjoy writing nor am I very good at it, therefore I just don't have a lot of past memories to sort through and find something interesting for my fellow peers to indulge in. However I know the power that writing can posses.  The longer I sit here in my basement reflecting on my past writing life, the more I think about how I truly only have one piece of writing that made me fill with unbelievable amounts of emotion. I knew this would be the piece and time in life that I would reflect back upon for this paper.

It was my first week of my first semester of college and I was in my intro college English class.  This was my first college English class ever and I was nervous from all the horror stories from high school. The class was large, cold, and the desks were in narrow rows. The room was full of students who came to Steamboat to just ski and satisfy their parent's needs by going to "school."  I however was attending this school because I didn't know what I wanted to study but I knew I needed to stay in school or I would never want to return after being in the "real world." Anyways the middle aged, unorganized professor made her way into the full class about ten minutes late. You could see the fear in her eyes and her unsteady breath reassured me that she was scared to death. She proceeded to tell us her name, age, where she went to school, and what her expectations were for the course. Syllabuses were handed out and we were given our first assignment.

We were to write about something that stood out in our minds about our summer. The class roared with laughter and many other students thought of something right away that would be "sick" to write about. I didn't have a good summer; it was not filled with happy memories and fun times. My best friend was killed in a car accident and that's all I remembered from the summer. I didn't like to discuses that event; it still hadn't even sunk in what had happened. I didn't want to be the one downer who writes a sob story, while the rest of the class writes about their best vacation ever or their best camping trip. I decided to give it sometime and try to remember something other than that event. Two weeks passed and it was time for the first draft to be due. I still could only think of this, after all that is all that plagued my mind for my entire summer. So despite what I really wanted to write about I decided to go with the topic of my best friends death. At the time I was unaware of the heartache I would uncover, the regret I would feel, and the hate that I had. But I was also about to discover one of the best methods of therapy that I could provide myself with....writing.

I had been told for years that "writing is fun and can be a way to relieve stress, and a great way to get your thoughts out in an organized manner." However, I had never written anything like this. I was not told a topic or paper boundaries, I was now able to write how I wanted and whatever I wanted....that made me very excited (no paper limits?, no book to reflect back on?.. yes!). My struggle for the paper was reflecting on one of the worst events of life. I would have to go back to that day and write a very detailed description of what had happened and what my feelings were. I hadn't even discussed my feelings with my parents, my other friends, or even his family. I had bottled all my thoughts up and threw that out to sea in hopes that someone would hear my pain someday but just not right away.

As I sat down to write the essay I began to drift away from the actual event but instead toward my feelings from that day to the feelings I still had. It was not hard for me to start writing but it was hard for me to re-read. The page became filled with my deepest thoughts and feelings and it was hard to actually see the pain laid out in plain sit for me. The guilt I felt as I read the thoughts,  had ripped me apart....should I have written the paper as a memory to my friend, instead of a selfish rant about how his death effected me. NO! I needed this few page essay to be all about me, my feelings, my hurt, and my current situation and not about how his family felt about all of this; people were waiting for my feelings and well here they are.

How could Jeff put himself in this position again, to get in car with another careless driver, did the first two near death accidents not teach him anything? Why was the driver able to survive the accident with not a scratch but Jeff died right away? I hated Dan so much for driving so fast and in those conditions. Dan was always such a selfish person and once again his selfishness cost my best friend, a son, and a caring person his life. Why Jeff and not Dan? These were answers I knew could never be answered but I wanted to express. I filled the pages with endless questions and stories of sleepless nights. I even wrote how I used to call his old number just to hear his voice again and hoping that maybe just maybe he would pick it up. He never did and that is what was so hard how could I hear the voice of this person that is no longer there for me to see? I wrote about my fears of forgetting his voice, the smell of his cologne, and what he looked like. I was scared that if he was not on my mind all the time then I was betraying him after all that he had done for me. How could I go on living a normal life and have fun when I know he is not here to share those memories with me.  My essay came to an end and it was now time to turn it in, that Friday I walked slowly and nervously to the front of the room and put it down on the large stack of papers. The professor smiled and said, "Have a wonderful weekend." I smiled back.

Later that weekend while I was online I decided to check my school e-mail. I had an e-mail from my professor and it read "Melanie I need to talk to you about your paper please come in my office before class." Great! I had totally bombed the paper or didn't do what was asked, I just told my teacher all this private information for nothing and now she was about to rip my feelings and thoughts apart.

Monday morning came faster than I wanted. I had this ache in my chest like never before and my hands got sweaty. I reached for the doorknob and entered saying,  "You wanted to see me." She asked me to take a seat. She held my paper in her hands and made eye contact with me. She gripped the paper tighter and looked down again. I heard her sniffle and then she looked up at me again, this time with tears filling her eyes. She proceeded to tell me that Dan, the driver of the car, was her nephew. Oh great I just offended my professor by telling her I wish her careless nephew would have been in Jeff's place.  She told me that what I had written had made her mad at first but now brought her a sense of closure that she had been longing for. She told me she had always wanted to share her feelings on the event and even more than that she wanted to hear how someone from the other side felt. I thought what a small world it was that two people who had never crossed paths before now shared a life changing event together.  She told me my thoughts were beautiful and asked if I had given a copy to his family. I told her no, I did not want anyone to know my thoughts yet. She said that giving the writing would allow me to give them all my feelings with out any interruption and that is had an unlined message of my love and friendship for their son. It took many weeks before I got the courage to mail Jeff's family a copy of my paper...my most private thoughts.

This was a memory that I will never forget. I learned the power that writing can hold. I have also learned that although I can share an event with someone, the memories and feelings we both have are very different.