Editor’s Epilogue: Writing is my security blanket

I am in the wildest love-hate relationship I’ve ever known with words. Of course, I’m here — writing this piece at 2 a.m. when I desperately need at least one night of quality sleep — because of the love part of the relationship.

I read a book for the first time when I was just two years old. According to what’s become a greatly-referenced legend of my childhood, my grandmother gifted me a copy of “Go Away, Big Green Monster!” by Ed Emberley for Christmas — a story my parents were certain I had never seen before. Unprompted, I sat down and started to read aloud as everyone’s mouths fell agape. 

I’m not telling this story to brag about my language abilities as an infant, but to show just how intuitive words were for me from the start. 

Ever since “Go Away, Big Green Monster!” the written word has been my primary method of expression — it’s where I’m most comfortable. Speaking was a different story, and this is where the hate side of the relationship comes in. 

No matter how hard I try, I can never make my brain run at an efficient speed. I’m either bouncing off the walls — interrupting people and embarrassingly oversharing — or am unable to form a coherent thought because my head is quite literally empty. 

But when I write, there are rules to follow that guide me out of the chaos in my mind. I can see when too many commas turn a sentence into a run-on, unlike when my meaningless ramblings dissipate without a clear conclusion. I know when I’m too far away from the minimum word count, instead of realizing after the fact that I didn’t take up nearly enough space in a conversation. 

Every haphazard word I say, I can’t take back. There’s no handy undo button. It’ll be part of the person’s perception of me forever — something I know I should care a lot less about. Instead, writing is beautifully impermanent. I can write a sentence as many times as I need to ensure it has the right tone, rhythm and vocabulary. Even though I seem to lack the ability to edit my spoken words in real time, I can change the punctuation or capitalization of a text to come across exactly as I intend to. 

While I by no means think these struggles are unique, the universe decided to concoct me a delectable mental illness cocktail — ADHD and a sprinkle (but like, a slip of the hand sprinkle that turns into more of a pour) of anxiety — that I rarely go a day without thinking about in my never-ending and perpetually-repetitive cycle of thoughts. 

The summer before my sophomore year, I finally learned the ingredients of this cocktail, which (long story short) led me to seriously consider dropping out of USC. I had the impossible task of coming to terms with the fact that, for 19 years, I tried to fit my square-pegged self into a world that’s a circular hole. A world of constant deadlines, where fast replies to text messages are imperative to maintaining relationships, where I’m expected to have substantive contributions to class discussions — none of which ever has, nor probably ever will, come easily to me. 

That fateful summer, I turned back to the written word and started journaling every chance I got. Something about turning my jumbled cloud of thoughts into a tangible product brought clarity like no other. Seeing these big feelings written into simple sentences made me realize that maybe my problems aren’t so unique and daunting, and that I can actually do something about them other than let them linger and build up inside of me. 

When I decided that I’d return to USC for at least one more semester to give it a fair chance, the written word was still there for me. I wasn’t even sure if I still wanted to pursue journalism, but reporting on important issues that fall reminded me why I fell in love with it in the first place. Journalism, like journaling, is the act of taking overwhelming current events and putting the intense emotions that come with them into words for people. It’s a reminder that we aren’t alone in this oftentimes discouraging world. 

Eventually, the written word led me here — as the managing editor of the Daily Trojan — writing this piece and sharing things that I never in a million years thought I’d share with the public. If you had told me even two years ago that I’d be here, I wouldn’t have believed you. And even though my future is terrifyingly uncertain right now, I have faith that somehow words will be there, guiding me. 

But for now, I’ll keep putting my overwhelming thoughts on a page, for myself and anyone else who happens to be reading. Just don’t ask me to talk about them. 

“Editors’ Epilogue” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment and their personal experiences of living in what seems to be an irrepressible dumpster fire of a world. Jenna Peterson is the managing editor of the Daily Trojan.