CHLOE MORSE
Why I Write
Do you remember the first scene of As Good as It Gets? Jack Nicholson walks into his apartment and closes the door behind him, cueing apprehensive orchestral music. Counting aloud in a sing-song voice, he locks the door five times, turns the light in the foyer on and off five times, and does the same to the bathroom light. Now, picture a 10-year old doing the same—that was me. My compulsions, while not identical to Jack’s, weren't far off. My special number was four, and if the occasion called for it, sixteen (four, then four more, then four more, then four more). If we’re talking about my movie, I would change the orchestral background music to something like the Circle Jerks’ “When the Shit Hits the Fan” to better reflect the goings-on of my head.
Every morning, I woke up and double-checked that all the items on my nightstand were correctly positioned: tissues in the back, chapstick in the front left corner, hand lotion in the front right corner, and hair tie in the middle center. I tapped my feet on the floor four times before getting out of bed, pumped the soap bottle four times when washing my hands, and touched the doorknob four times when entering my room. Before leaving, I triple-checked that all of the items on my nightstand were still in the right place. The morning continued like this until I left for school.
I was not just a quirky child with a peculiar love of order. I feared that failure to complete these tedious tasks would result in some terrible, terrible disaster. “If my hair tie is out of place, the world might end.” So, if the completion of a simple task could potentially save the world, why not do it? Having the fate of humanity rest on your shoulders as a fifth-grader is, as you can imagine, rather stressful.
Of course, this unusual behavior did not go unnoticed by my parents, so they stuck me in therapy to nip my problem in the bud. It took a while for said bud to be nipped, but over time, I got better. The time came when I no longer had to perfectly organize the items on my nightstand or touch the doorknob four times. Now, I appreciate imperfections and moments of discomfort, but I still never lost the part of myself that seeks control over my actions and my future.
As my writing assignments became increasingly sophisticated throughout my time in school, I discovered the wondrous feeling of handing in work that I was proud of. The sense of accomplishment that I got from placing my essay—that took hours of typing and unhealthy amounts of caffeine—in a flimsy manila “turn-in” folder is still unparalleled by anything I have ever felt. However, along the way, I discovered a somewhat deeper reason that explains why I write. A reason that reconciles my 10-year-old self’s lingering obsessions with my current optimism toward the unexpected.
In writing, I found the perfect balance between organization and messiness. I frequently start with the shittiest of first drafts, purging wild ideas and words onto a page that sound totally incomprehensible and unrelated. Then, I treat the page exactly as I treated my nightstand. Some ideas go at the top and some at the bottom, and I reorganize sentences until they are all in the “correct position.” Take my research paper on the Spanish-American War as an example. The process felt like solving a puzzle, as the piece stood at a whopping 23 pages. I started with stacks of books borrowed from the midtown public library, which transformed into a dense Google document full of evidence, blooming into an organized outline, and soon becoming a completed picture. I found a natural flow that extended all the way from Pulitzer and Hearst to President McKinley. While the other kids moaned about the ridiculous length of the paper, I secretly savored the adrenaline rush.
Beginning a piece of writing also involves entering a realm of the unknown. Its limitless nature, vast and unruly, is something that would have previously frightened me, but now excites me. There are endless possibilities and directions to take, which requires relinquishing my need for control. I must lose myself in the realm of the unknowable—a realm that belongs to a world which will never end—even if I didn’t pump the soap bottle four times.
