Maybe this is why people write:
Their life is hard. So hard it’s difficult to believe that this is how they live now.
Maybe before or as they set out to write, there’s a question they ask themselves, a question they also ask their God: ‘Is this my life now?’
Maybe sometimes, they don’t even ask a question. They simply blurt out — ‘I can’t believe this is my life now.’ A revelation that still stuns them, one they refuse to accept.
They may be grappling with disbelief, or they may be coming to slow acceptance. Whatever the case, they write, doing so when they can and where they can, even when they shouldn’t be.
As they pour out the words, they may or may not think this way: ‘One day, someone will need my words.’ A daughter or a son will inherit these stories as a keepsake, a memorial.
And they keep writing. They do it with all their strength: to lend a hand of kinship to strangers; to create something they can scan through in reminiscence, in mourning, in gratitude.
Someday soon, their words will say to someone: ‘Look at me. What you are going through has happened to me before, and it didn’t kill me.’
Their story will say, ‘Others may not understand, but I do. You can listen to me. You can take my word for it.’
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In her book about addiction and co-dependency, Nina Renata Aron wrote: I thought there must be something soulful, something wise written by a grown woman, someone who had felt this way before, who would know how to handle it.
She was writing about how, as a teenager, she spent time searching for books for someone like herself. She was no ordinary teen, given that her family was in disarray, with her older sister being addicted to drugs and her parents being ‘limp and ragged with worry.’
But in all her search, she found nothing. Or at least, nothing honest enough. Nothing that answered the questions troubling her mind.
In her book, she further wrote this about women who had lived with addicts, whether those addicts were friends, spouses or grown children: Were (the women) too tired to write anything down? Too busy making their own mistakes?
In adulthood, Aron ended up writing what might be called the book she had always wanted to read. Her words made me realise how much of a big deal resonance and a sense of kinship are. Those things that make us think ‘me too’? They really do matter.
I mean, think of a situation you’ve faced. That one that perhaps made you say, ‘I have never seen this type of thing before.’ Imagine that while facing — or resisting — it, you find someone who has experienced such.
You end up reading what they wrote. Maybe you have a conversation with them and let some things off your chest.
I’m sure that reading someone’s story will rarely, if ever, take your own problem away. But one thing it might do is to make your heart less afraid, make you feel less alone, let you know that someone understands.
My friend, Jessica, once said this when we were discussing nonfiction writing: ‘Vulnerability is the price you pay for purpose.’
I haven’t forgotten that.
I haven’t fully come to embrace it either.
Is writing my purpose? I have wondered.
While I grapple with that, non-fiction writing is teaching me that I cannot hide beneath carefully-laid plots; I must either say the truth or say nothing at all. This is my vocation now. I doubt that I can escape. And neither can you.
But then, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to run away, not now, and probably not ever. Maybe we should just do what we know how to do, what we need to do: write and keep writing.
So, my dear reader, write for your many reasons.
- Write simple things, and hard things also.
- Write for yourself, but also for the next person.
- Write for the forlorn traveller who will read your words and perhaps find some courage, some faith, some comfort, some hope.
And yeah, maybe this is why people write: to beam a light on a situation and a life to soften burdens with their words. And maybe, just maybe, this is why many more people should write.