Personal Essays – Krista the Writer

Something very dark has happened. My hands shook at first, but still not a single tear dropped. I’m not sure I’ve earned grief, so instead I feel anger on her behalf.

I did not know her. There are pictures of us sitting together as young children, her being six years my senior. I have snippets of these memories, sitting outside, hosting a yard sale, selling binders of Pokémon cards, attending the town fair, and holiday visits.

I have memories of being ten years old, going to the newly built movie theater and plaza together. The plaza is so empty in my memory compared to what it looks like today, two decades later. I remember riding as a passenger in her car, which was filled with CDs: discs layered in black canvas slots affixed to the visor, and more in a zippered case shoved beneath the seat. I spat bubble gum out of the window, and it landed right on the car, and we all laughed. My embarrassment melted. She understood me, it seemed.

We were very close for that time. She lived with our grandparents, but visited me often. I was introduced to a teenage culture I was desperate to join in my early pre-teen years. We went to the movies and the mall, ate at TGI Fridays there, and drove through the enormous, empty parking lot, long past any curfew or bedtime, with her alt-grunge boyfriend.

She was so cool. Her favorite color was orange, so my favorite color was orange. She loved Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, so I loved Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. She wore Etnies, so I wore Etnies. She had those cool beaded curtains in her room, and I HAD to have those. I can’t remember if I ever got them, but I do remember visiting Journey’s and Spencer’s and her buying a “Jesus is my Homeboy” t-shirt. I remember wondering if I should buy one, too.

I often used the internet as a child, well, as often as I could. Yet every time I think back to what it was like before to “go online,” I first picture sitting in that dusty nook together with my big sister. I am still ten years old. We sat at the wooden desk together, boxes and some other odds and ends piled behind us, the inaccessible “front door” to our right. The computer monitor waited for us to log on and visit the World Wide Web.

We had to make sure no one needed the phone before listening to that early-2000s dial tone and patiently waiting to be connected to the internet. The tone was loud, grating, and exciting. It never bothered me one bit.

She loved the song “The Reason” by Hoobastank and would cover up part of the computer screen when we watched the music video for “Stacy’s Mom.” She showed me the eBaum’s World website, and from then on, I frequently logged on and watched videos like “The End of the World” by Albino Blacksheep and “Schfiftyfive” by Group X. I still quote these videos over twenty years later.

We had no idea how quickly we would be connected to the internet in just a few years, nor how short-lived those moments of sisterhood would be as we grew apart the following year.

I can feel my eyes welling up now. I long for that one experience of sisterhood we had that one summer. I am filled with nostalgia and anger at the adults in both our lives who thought nothing of our relationship’s importance and failed to keep us connected. Cell phones weren’t as prominent then, especially for children my age.

We had a shared traumatic experience that summer. I am not sure if she would have considered it a trauma, as it was life-changing for me, but she got to go back to her home after it all.

That was the night I was forced to leave four of my siblings behind, only to see them a handful of times over the next decade. I guess she must have left all of her half-siblings behind, too. Her only connection to them was severed by the events of that night.

It was the last time I saw her until I reached adulthood, or close to it at least.

I struggled in my new life, seemingly on my own, and she must have faced her own battles and traumas an hour west of me. We talked a few times when I was in my early twenties, and hung out once or twice.

Those hangouts and conversations burned quickly at both ends. Each time, our sisterhood was placed back inside a memory box until something, maybe, would lead us to send a new “hey, how have you been?” text.

Over the years, she grew to resent me for our separate life paths. I hated that and felt her belief to be unfair. This resentment is not my own perception. She said so herself.

She sent me an angry text years and years ago, claiming I was the “favorite” and blaming me a bit for the life she had. She really thought I had a better life, whatever that meant to her. Little did she know.

I had long hoped to counter her assumptions about my life and assure her that I, too, had my own traumas. If we reconnected, we could talk about them, bond over them, and be angry about some of our likely similar, even shared, experiences together. That never happened.

I will not give away her life story, as I do not know it, and it is not mine to tell. I only know facts about her caregiver and living arrangements, and of our short summer of sisterhood together.

She deserved attention, care, and dignity from two people who should have always been there. Just as any child deserves. That specific care, I can say with confidence, she hardly received and was desperately owed.

I last talked to her a few years ago during a difficult time in my own life. Now I am sure it must have been a difficult time for her, too. I sent her a long message, and she never responded. I assumed she did not want to hear from me again.

Nobody can know whether my own assumption was right or wrong.

It doesn’t matter now.

Even after this reflection, I still cannot describe the feeling in my body. I feel angry and annoyed, and I do feel grief for our brief sisterhood.

I made myself available for a few relatives who may need to talk or grieve, but have not heard from anyone beyond that.

I guess I don’t know how I am allowed to feel. Can I attend her funeral if there is one? Will I be welcome there by relatives who have not cared to keep in touch with me? Was it always my job, from elementary school, to stay in touch with older cousins, aunts, and uncles?

Will my sister’s spirit be angry that I only showed up when it was too late and there was nothing either of us could say?

It’s been about 15 hours since it happened. Writing this was all I knew I could do.

I went on Facebook as I drank my morning coffee and noticed two relatives had similar ideas, each posting to honor her.

I remembered our relationship had been so fractured that she had either unfriended me, blocked me, or deleted her account entirely. Not that I’d post on her wall for her to view from “the other side.”

One post was from one of our sisters. It was a seven-paragraph essay written and posted with photos from childhood with my big sister. Each statement in that post is filled with “I wish I could have…”, “I always felt…”, “I wanted us to be…”, “I’m so this“, and “I’m so that.” I, I, I and me, me, me.

We all grieve in our own ways, and I do want to be supportive of my relatives who have not experienced a loss like this. So, feeling obligated, I liked the post.

Later, I saw a new post from another relative who hardly knew her, advertising a GoFundMe to cover her funeral expenses. Both the Facebook post and the GoFundMe were unquestionably written by ChatGPT.

One bit called her a “tender lover” (gag).

I deleted my Facebook account.

I screamed aloud, “FUCK EM ALL, ASHLEE!”

I hope that solidarity meant something to her. I wondered if she could hear it.

She deserved to have something to live for.

Until I get into the flow of things, i.e., my reacquaintance with writing and literature, I will post here freely. It will not start with anything like my best compositions or thesis papers, but I’ll get there. This is a big leap for me. I don’t have anything to sell, no quest for fame, and zero self-confidence to market myself to consumers and employers alike. It still feels like the right thing to do.

I had an uncomfortable conversation at Thanksgiving. Well, an attempt at a conversation anyway. I’ll get to that.

I am in my early thirties, and I have yet to land on a specific career path. I tried a lot of different things, and now possess many small skills that I don’t need.

I wanted to become a teacher and a writer throughout my life,

Stating “What I Want to be When I Grow Up” makes me feel like a child again… but it’s true: I’ve always loved acquiring and sharing knowledge, particularly through writing.

I stayed in from recess for writing workshops with my third-grade teacher. I was enrolled in a specialty writing class in my first elementary school, had a poem published in the (very small, very local) newspaper, and created my own newspaper (The Scorpion) for my parents, featuring op-eds on topics like the fairness and likability of early 2000s American Idol judges.

Through my regular practice and the support from my dad, writing and reading became foundational parts of my identity.

Then, I reached my twenties and abandoned myself. I stopped thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. I had no time for passions and hobbies.

After delaying a year, I had left college twice already by age 25. I spent the rest of my twenties insecure and distraught over the perceived choice between “financial security” and “following your purpose.” I was too precious about writing, so much so that I stopped writing altogether.

My distress deepened as time carried on. My envy of old friends completing their degrees heightened my frantic need to just get one for myself. So many people seemed to have it all figured out, and even if they didn’t, the appearance of their success was enough to kill my own self-worth. I was panicked at the thought of running out of time.

Nearing age thirty, I was a shell of the person I wanted to become.

At age 27, my mind regularly wandered to the same tormenting questions, day and night: What am I meant to do? Why can’t I figure this out? How do I bridge the gap between fulfillment and making enough to pay the bills?

Then I had a lightbulb moment.

It was after I hung out with my friends and their kids during one of my son’s baseball games. I cannot possibly remember what we did, but I do remember feeling “in my element” as I had the young kids playing games, laughing, and using their imaginations while watching their siblings play ball.

Later that night, as with every night, those agonizing questions popped up again.

Then, the lightbulb: Why aren’t you teaching?

That was a financially secure career, and I would have the same time off as my son, AND it was one of my career plans in high school!

I mean, there it is, right?!

As a teenager, I had worked in a preschool, volunteered as a youth sports coach, mentored a freshman English class, and worked at a gymnastics academy. Whatever blinded me to my purpose before seemed immediately obvious that night.

From there, I completed my undergraduate degree in elementary education. Finally, a college degree. A step in the right direction!

I loved every single minute of each school day. I was good at teaching, not near a veteran level, but I knew I was successful in helping kids learn. Nothing filled me with more joy than watching the gears turn in students’ minds or observing a student’s lightbulb moment when they learned something new or figured something out on their own.

For myriad reasons I won’t get into here, I stopped teaching elementary school right after my stint as a long-term substitute.

Leaving teaching left me feeling useless and insufficient. If teaching was my destined purpose, and I couldn’t swing it, then I was out of options. I tried to revisit previous career ideas as I clawed my way out of the jaws of depression, but nothing else fit.

So, I chose not to think about my career at all for a while. As my late mother-in-law famously said, “It will always work out.” I put a lot of faith in that platitude.

Months (years?) later, here we are. I have been writing since early this morning, without fear or care that this post is not “good” or that I am not good enough. This “it will all work out” theory is holding up so far, despite what my close relative stated to me on Thanksgiving.

Right, let’s move on from my decade-long career indecision and work through that Thanksgiving conversation here.

I will name my relative “Alex” to avoid redundancy. It helps that I don’t have a relative of this name. I must add: I feel better stating here that I care deeply about Alex and value their opinions; I simply disagree strongly with their stance on this.

Ok, Thanksgiving. For background, Alex knows about my career struggles and about my history with writing.

After Thanksgiving dinner, I spoke to Alex and let them know that I had decided to start writing again. I told them that I hope to make it central to my next career move, whether I taught secondary English, performed literary research, did some freelance writing, who knows…as long as I am writing.

Maybe Alex did not realize it, but what I meant when I said this was: I am writing again to reclaim my identity.

I imagined Alex would be supportive, even happy for me. Instead, I was met with this (near-verbatim) response: “You would be wasting your time. I have AI write nearly everything for me.”

Alex went on to explain that they use multiple LLMs (Large Language Models) to write and refine a piece before it reaches its intended destination. Their company no longer hires writers for its website. Just AI-sourced content.

I shared with them my frustration that my passions and skills, which I have spent the majority of my life practicing, now feel threatened by artificial intelligence. Alex said I need to learn to make money with AI, and that teaching and learning will be AI-driven. No more schools, just computers and artificial intelligence.

(I would LOVE to hear the logistics of this. We should just send all the kids to a big room with their laptops, with an adult supervising and offering tech support. I am sure there is no research on the learning and skill deficits we see in high-tech learning environments and screen-addicted children…please note my intended sarcasm here.)

I get it. Humans like convenience. Plus, artificial intelligence is cool! Remember SmarterChild from AIM? That was cool, too. Despite this “cool factor” and the convenience, I firmly believe in responsibly using artificial and augmented intelligence when the net utility is high (for example, as a billing tool or diagnostic aid in healthcare). Copying an article one LLM wrote and pasting it for editing in another LLM does not present a high net utility for using AI in our daily lives.

I felt dismissed entirely as a person.

Alex’s apparent certainty that humans will never teach or write again is wrong. I refuse to believe that human creativity, communication, and my own sense of fulfillment will be AI casualties.

My purpose in writing is not to write and submit something in under 10 minutes, nor is it to enlighten the masses with regulation-compliant articles.

Human beings will always need to read what other humans write. As James Baldwin stated in his 1963 LIFE Magazine interview, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” We read human perspectives to recognize and understand our shared experiences. Creating and consuming art expands our perception of ourselves, the world, and our places within it. We may choose to create or consume art to escape reality, even for a moment, or to examine it more deeply. Sometimes we feel lost and alone until we read.

Baldwin’s wisdom speaks to the significance of reading and writing in my own life. Books have always helped me make sense of myself, my life, and other people’s choices and ways of being. Writing helps me reflect, to share knowledge and research, and to work through complicated ideas or events.

I am making a commitment to myself and my writing practice. I am reconnecting with my true passions and identity. I am finally writing, reading, and talking about literature again.

I feel as though I have put on an old favorite sweatshirt. The perfect, cozy sweatshirt that gets chosen above the rest ten out of ten times. I feel at home and safe when I am writing and reading.

I will not be discouraged from writing just because an LLM can craft a perfect professional email.

Yes, I am a writer. Here’s to feeling like myself again.

Category: Personal Essays

She Deserved Something to Live For

Am AI a Writer?