I want to become a better writer.

I want to become a better writer so I can make you feel the emotion that runs through my veins, so you are overcome with the same ratio of happy/sad/confused. Surely someone has felt this exact way before, but is there a name for it? Are there words that can be combined in a manner that will cause you to listen to the same thirty-second segment of a sad/hopeful song on repeat and fight off tears? And not know whether the droplets are manifestations of depression or happiness or some other unlabeled mental state, or if the tears flow because there is just so much emotion built-up that you don’t know the words or actions necessary to express it.

I want to become a better writer so that I can better understand myself. So that I can figure out why on the day a great friend was diagnosed with cancer I felt not only anger but a sense of warm comfort. So I can try to understand why I leave my friends on a Sunday morning to write, read, hike, and take pictures, but instead stew all afternoon about being alone. So I can explain why Joan Didion is right when she says that because I keep a private notebook that I’m “affected by a presentiment of loss.” So that maybe it will be clear why one moment I’m slouched in a chair paralyzed by an indecipherable angst and the next I’ve got my shirt off and am dancing around my room to Rage Against The Machine songs I don’t even like. And so I’ll be able to articulate why the days leading up to a first date are the loneliest.

The truth is, I know the answers to most of these questions, I’d just prefer not to know them alone.

We act like we are “in it” together and to some degree we are. When my friend started his battle against cancer I told him I was in it with him. I meant it. But there are fears and unnamed emotions dancing around in my head that, if I was Kurt Vonnegut, could still not be explained. I cannot imagine the Tango of inscrutable feelings pulling back and forth in my friend’s head. While I am with him in his fight, I cannot be with him in his mind.

I want to become a better writer so when I next fall in love (and am loved back), I can express things that flowers, kisses, and “I love you’s” can’t. There will not a moment when she doubts her beauty or thinks “I just need to lose a couple of pounds.” When her head hits the pillow she will feel complete comfort both with the man next to her and with the woman residing under her skin. I want to provide her with a permanent sense of peace that I am not sure I will ever find.

After viewing too many cringe-inducing best-man and maid-of-honor speeches, I am determined to string together a few words that, at minimum, do not include the phrase “I love you, man” because the addition of “man” always makes it sound less sincere. The words will hopefully not make the audience look at their feet and pray for the moment when they can issue a fake applause and get back to boozing. That is, or course, if I am ever deemed worthy of such a role.

I want to become a better writer so that I can properly eulogize my parents, a role that I will demand. I already know what song to play at their funerals, but am petrified I will never find the words to summarize their lives, their persons. Is it even possible to fully capture a person with words? Mine will not be aimed to guide them to heaven, but to say goodbye to two unique creatures, two beings that I am becoming more like everyday, but that will never be replicated.

I want to become a better writer so I can find a sexier way to say “I want to become a better writer.” I’m not much for fancily flowing phrases or elaborate descriptions of wallpaper, but sometimes my simple, point-blank approach feels bare. I want to become a better writer because when I form even a half-way intelligent or mildly interesting line, it makes me want to take off my clothes and dance around to songs I don’t even like. Piecing together words melds many ominous storm clouds of thought into one soothing and squeezable cumulus. The things I discover by putting words on paper are not always pleasant, but the act of articulating a month’s worth of unnamed discomfort makes even the most gruesome stuff seem okay.

Those are my hopes. And that is why I want to become a better writer.

* A note about this piece. It was inspired by and partly molded after a baller piece by my good friend “J.C.” called “I Want To Write You A Letter.” I am hoping he will let me share it here.

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