chronic unrequited polyamory

Composing a long and difficult letter, it becomes clear just how much damage has been done to my writing by the “generous” English accommodations forced upon me in high school. 

If you wish to become a better writer, read more. If you want to STAY one, simply write. Frequently. Following my POTS diagnosis, Special Ed saddled me with three years of neither when I should have been in AP classes, and it’s very much reflected in my prose. I am out of practice, and my inability to express thoughts with the eloquence that once came so easily frustrates me to no end. 

To be sure, my fourteen-year-old self wrote shit. I cannot read pre-POTS compositions without blanching at every other awkwardly constructed phrase. Syntactical pretension from one who is not yet learned in the technical underpinnings of syntax comes across douchey*. But it was shit with voice, style, direction. These days my writing tries too hard in entirely different ways, a cheap imitation striving to recapture that lost confidence, and the result is… merely passable. At best. I hate it so much.

*See: that entire sentence.