Why I Write and Don’t Write
If eighth grade Caroline met sixteenth grade Caroline, I don’t think she would ever believe that she would still be writing and writing for fun at that. Every week for homework, my eighth grade English teacher would assign us 5 one page essays to write. By the end of the school year, I had 150 pages worth of essays, a massive hand cramp, and a pure hatred for writing. It wasn’t until high school that I found the practice to actually be somewhat enjoyable. My sophomore and junior year teachers, Mrs. Kirshner and Mrs. Knight respectively, were mentors for me inside and outside of the classroom. They helped me discover that words have meaning. Writing was a way for me to take my unique ideas, frame them creatively to build my distinctive voice, and create a tangible extension of myself.
Over the course of my college years, I have had full autonomy over the production of all of my work. I spent an entire semester creating different pieces of work for my semester-long project about "Sex and the City" for my gateway course. I’ve written dozens of articles for a blog on campus called Hopelessly Yellow about the things I’ve learned about life and myself over the past three years. I have recorded a podcast with my best friend called Golden Hour that covers a wide range of topics that centralize around the idea of connecting to your most authentic self.
While I’ve created an extensive amount of work for my classes, student organization, friends, and family, there is one person I have never written for: myself. I have always struggled with journaling. As a writer, my friends and family members have always thought to gift me beautiful notebooks and personal, guided journals that have remained untouched on my nightstand. (If you’re one of those people and reading this now, I am so terribly sorry.) Trust me I had tried. I’ve whipped out the Bic ballpoint pen, flipped through the pages, thought about my answers to the prompts, but have never been able to put pen to paper. Since I’ve spent so much time and energy writing for a grade, a person, a publication, I have not been able to shake my perfectionism mindset. I get inside my head and worry if my writer’s voice is coming through, if my prose sounds sophisticated, if my spelling and grammar is correct. I get so frustrated with myself that I end up slamming the book shut and tucking it away again.
Why I Speak and Don’t Speak
“A pleasure to have in class, but spends too much class time talking.” - every teacher’s famous reports of me during parent teacher conferences. I have always been a very extroverted person and thrive getting to know people. Small talk is my kryptonite. I love telling personal stories about embarrassing moments, funny plot lines in my life that would only happen to me, and big accomplishments and hearing the same about others. I truthfully don’t understand introverted people. I have tried my best to wrap my head around the idea of being an introvert, but I don’t fully get it and don’t think I ever will. I am surrounded by dozens of cool interesting people and I am constantly seeking the opportunity to get to know them better and help them learn more about me.
Entering the nursing field, I’ve had to hone my communication skills on a daily basis. After working in the hospital for three years, I believe I have landed on the greatest icebreaker of all time: “How was breakfast?” Patients normally don’t want to have conversation first thing in the morning, so I wait for the rapport building until after they’ve gotten some sugar in them. Now, it doesn’t actually matter what their answer is, because you just agree with them. For example: Patient A says “Actually, pretty good!” and I reply “I know, the omelette is great, especially with the hash browns on the side.” Patient B could say “It was pretty terrible,” to which I would reply “Ugh, I know! Holding up the hospital food stereotype I see.” The food doesn’t matter: it is just a catalyst for connection.
While talking about superficial things like meals, the weather, and sports comes naturally to me, I have trouble talking about the things that matter. I have had trouble facilitating deep conversation with my friends and family. Many people picture me as the funny, loud, outgoing girl that I introduce myself as. I love this Caroline. However, this version of myself creates a fence around my truer self: the girl that feels everything so deeply and heavily all of the time, tries to hold on tightly to every moment for the fear that it will slip out of her hands if she looks away for just one second, the girl that prays for peace, courage, and strength to get through the day each morning. I love this Caroline, too.
I’ve been working to put this version of myself in the spotlight in places where I feel she will be safe: in front of people that will give her a place to sit, offer her a cup of tea, listen to her, and give her a hug. In terms of the reciprocal, it is hard for me to tell people how much they mean to me. I stumble over trying to find the right words, not to sound too cheesy, make things awkward, or come on too strong. So much so that I end up not saying anything at all. I get so frustrated with myself that I end up slamming my mouth shut and tucking those conversations away.
Why I Made this Game
I created this project to inspire me to open up the journal and my mouth. I wanted to create something that would push me to have meaningful conversations with myself and others. I spent much time researching questions from journal prompts (to the friends and family that bought me journals before: see, they didn’t go to waste!), podcasts, and games about conversation to create the questions seen on the cards. They range in complexity with the more surface level questions on the lower number cards and the questions get deeper with the growing value of the cards.
I decided on a deck of cards as they have always had significance in my life. The greatest gift I ever gave anyone was a book for my mom called 52 Things I Love About You. I took a deck of cards and put a sticker on each one with a little fact about my mom, hole punched the sides and bound it together into a little book. Whenever I travel, I always buy a deck of cards from the airport of the place I visit as a little memento. I've always kept a deck of cards in my backpack because of the convenience and diversity of games you can play. Using the cards at a catalyst for creating connection feels central to who I am.
Playing cards games with this deck with myself and with my friends and family has opened me up to deeper conversations and understandings of myself and the people closest to me. Though I have only provided reflections on a few people so far, I plan to continue to play this game with others in my life to inspire me to open myself up to more people and share with them why I love them and find them so special to me. I hope you enjoy my project and play for yourself!
