I had my first enjoyable writing experience during my senior year of high school. I’ve done quite a few English courses throughout my twelve years of education but none actually helped me enjoy the writing process. In all these classes, I felt like writing was a menial task, a means to an end, with the end being a grade that would hopefully launch my GPA and get me into college. However, I discovered a new writing class in my second semester senior year. My dream school had already accepted my parent’s deposit, so the weight of the grading scale was off my shoulders.

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The class was titled “Creative Writing.” My senioritis welcomed the simplicity and openness of the assignments on the syllabus. They could be as long or as short as we wanted them to be. However, I was quickly overtaken by the will to write and share my pieces. As the length of my pieces grew, so did the originality of the work. My projects ranged from a tell-all piece on the dating site OkCupid, and the outrageous messages I received on the site, to an ode to Channing Tatum.

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My favorite piece from the class was not the lewd messages from men nor was it the written shrine to my favorite celebrity. It was and would be, the great start to my future memoir. The personal essay I wrote was titled “Haunted Hysteria.” The story surrounds an embarrassing incident that took place during my freshman year of high school. I was trying to establish a friend group at my new school so I volunteered with this group of girls to work the school’s haunted house. Instead of a fun-filled evening of laughs and forming bonds with my future best friends, I got punched in the face by a terrified man when I jumped out from the protective darkness with a mask on. The story ended with a bloody lip, an accident report form and my mother to get me. My teacher and classmates found my personal distress comical and nudged me to submit my essay to an online teen magazine. Little did I know that I would be published in the print version and given an award for their monthly non-fiction contest. 

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It’s been a few years since that writing class in senior year. It’s been a few years since I felt validated by my writing, or at least validated by an outside source. I have taken a few more writing classes in college and continued my education with another creative writing course. Even after the courses on the broad range of writing forms, I still feel a connection to “Haunted Hysteria.” It revealed my particular interest in writing personal essays and creative non-fiction.

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Now the question that sits in front of me as I write this essay nearing another senior year: why I continue to write now that I have small acclaim for my work and no intention of making it my professional career.

And my answer to myself is this: my life, and many others, are filled with wondrous tales of embarrassment or triumph. Even if another person never views the memories that I have captured on the page, the words staring back at me make me feel as though I am not alone. Memories that taunt, embarrass or distress can be freed by a few simple sentences or a long memoir. Maybe someday I can publish my own memoir regaling audience worldwide with relatable commentary about how everyone in life can be knocked down (or punched) and we all have the ability to live on another day.

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