My Development as a Writer

Leaning back against the window, I put my pen and notebook down and listened to the high pressured whoosh as we passed up the occasional semi. The sound was intense and almost annoying, but subconsciously, it blended together with the rest of the highway noises and became just another pitch in the drowsy hum. Everyone else was asleep by then. I had been up all night, packing and repacking, but still I thought there was no chance I could fall asleep in the middle of that day. I had never been a very good writer, but I was trying to start a letter to my family so that I could send it off easily within a few days. My mom had written out an address book for me with people to write in my free time. She had told me how great a support letters can be and encouraged that I get into the habit of writing them. I thought I would give it a try, but my thoughts were completely garbled at the moment, and I kept getting caught up trying to fix each and every grammar error as I wrote so that as I modified one error it would contradict something else. I would change the second error to fit the immediate context, but by the time I reached the end of the sentence I had forgotten what my original thought was, and I was left trying to make sense out of a string of unrelated ideas. I looked out the window and watched our shadow lengthen out across the ditch as the highway lifted above the surrounding fields. We were getting close. I felt weird, in a blurred haze, but at the same time I was hyperaware of everything around me. I could feel each bead of sweat roll down the front and back of my neck and soak into my shirt or get baked dry, half way down, by the sun beating down on me. The windows seemed to magnify this, but I did not pay atten...

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...art into the writing experience that I lacked, but more than that they gave me something to cherish for the rest of my life. I am always glad I took the drive out to the school, even if it was not for me. I learned how to instigate and maintain a writing feud with my siblings, and I could keep all the important pieces of my life together. Because of letter writing I really did not leave much behind, but I gained so much new relationships, and the relationships I already had just got deeper. I am back at home now, but I still receive letters and postcards from friends. People I might have only know in person for a few days or a few hours, but because I kept up with in writing I now know better than most of my older friends. Everyone loves to get mail, at least letter mail, at least I do, and still, even short notes written by hand, have such a bigger meaning.