A Diabetic Woman’s Love Letter to Her Endocrinologist on Valentine’s Day:

The piece entitled “A Love Letter to My Endocrinologist for Valentine’s Day” was an informative look into a woman’s appreciation of her doctor. In typical love letter fashion she poses what makes her new and improved medical specialist different fro all the rest; that he is through, caring, informative, and judgement free. Where all the other doctors were just trying to act as higher class drug peddlers or rigid first aid robots, her new doctor exemplified the key characteristics of listening. It is no stretch to expect the attentive ear of a suitable romantic partner but when put into the perspective of a woman seeking a doctor the context shifts. To have a doctor who listens to the your plight and has the empathy to understand the hardship you face is a relationship one wouldn’t know they were missing until they found it. Her writing served as a checklist to find the knight in shining scrubs you never knew you needed.

A Sandy Hook Teacher’s Open Letter to a Fellow Teacher in Parkland, Florida: ‘There Is No Moving On, Only Moving Forward’

To me this letter exemplifies everything powerful about writing; allowing common experience to tether us to each other and empower one another. As the teacher who survived the Sandy Hook mass shooting laid out the framework of her mental state after having gone through such a traumatic event it becomes much more real. She talks about how to move forward and accept the atrocity as a memory that will be left in the past but will always make up apart of her and the teacher in Parkland who went through the same thing. The letter felt personal, as opposed to the previous which seemed to be a much more literal take on “open letter”. Surely this letter is also meant for anyone who has had to live through something like a mass shooting, but I could really feel the connection that the Sandy Hook teacher was creating with the Parkland teacher. This letter touched on the aspect of survival that is the most difficult as a survivor and savior; not being taken back to the day of the horrors. Even as someone who hasn’t been through something of that magnitude I found the words inspiring. The one thing that snapped me out of the personal element of the letter was the call to action toward the government at the end. . Considering what she has had to endure, as well as what many others have had to endure as well, the words carry the weight of her message and are deeply moving.

Anna Crean: Parkland Survivor

The words of the Parkland freshman survivor are incredibly visceral and haunting. The call to action here is palpable and extremely heavy. There is an enormous amount of rage behind her words and I personally commend her for being so eloquent in light of what she has had to see. She speaks a teeth-gritted truth that drips with authenticity and care. Anna talks about having to wait until another shooing such as the one that claimed the lives of her friends take place as suited senators do nothing but protect their own interest. She stands out and speaks out so that her school is not another statistic roped into school shootings, for she is a voice that screams in frustration to be heard. The letter made me want to scream in the ear of every politician who has done nothing to save the lived of this nations youth from insanely overpowered guns. She is truly a powerful voice and it is tragic and that our country has failed the youth so much that a child must stand up to teach the “adults” a lesson in reality. Though she no longer has the innocence that should be promised to a freshman in high school she uses her new lens on the world to make ripple in the fabric of peoples perception.

What is water in my life? In the terms of David Foster Wallace I would say that my “water” is the reality in which I exist; ruled by the perceptions and standards of meaning I have assigned to the world. In simpler terms, if we are looking at the element, water then my perception of water has always been that of cleaning and escape. I think back to my childhood in which going to a public pool or the beach was an adventure all in itself. I recall feeling free as the current and the rippling texture I was emersed in would toss me about as I would push against its force and will myself in impossible directions. In a submerged state one can accomplish feats only fantasies about; to fly and twirl about in weightlessness. The one caveat of water is its cruel duality. It has the ability to give you wonderful powers and breath life into you, but just as quickly it can envelope you and snuff you out. Its almost crueler than fire, who’s intoxicating glow can draw you in but is still telling of the damage it can cause. Water on the other hand extends a welcoming hand and with its churning hypnosis it beckons you enter its world. Thinking about water I’m suddenly drawn to all that we don’t know about it. Its such a present force in our lives and it spans over the grader surface of our planet, yet we know more about outer space then what lies beneath the darkest recess of the ocean. It really isn’t an element made for humans. Naturally we have evolved and become so curious as to traipse on its upper layers, but in my recent neurosis, the terror of what could be gliding under your toes irrationally comes to mind. I do my best to dismiss the the varieties of fins and fangs that no doubt look up at my toes and try and remember the delightful sensation of flying that I cling to.

In his commencement speech to Kenyon college’s 2005 graduating class David Foster Wallace brings up key practices to surviving “the outside world”; awareness and open-mindedness. Wallace does not sugar coat any of the harsh realities that surely away the soon to be graduates; he uses a polarizing, bleak description of a supermarket to illustrate how we are all inevitably equalized in boredom. Most importantly he touches upon how the mundane can wear thin our empathy and consideration for others. I identified immensely with everything that Wallace spoke of in this speech and frankly found it confronting to know that someone shares my same ideas and frustrations. He used the analogy of a wise old fish asking two younger fish “How’s the water?” and the two young fish responded, “What the hell is water?”. He related this to how we, as humans, rarely look up to question and take in our present reality. It is quite easy for us to click on the autopilot and coast through life without giving a second thought to the people that surround us who make up our reality. I was moved by David Foster Wallace’s choice to truly connect with the students and present them in such a way that was consumable and relatable. He possessed the scathing wit and the comfortable dialogue to truly get his point across. Wallace used no words to put himself in a place of authority; he presented ideas and issues that the modern adult faces day to day. He addressed the aspect of life that is often times most difficult, the moments which grind down our patience with other human beings and place ourselves at the center of the universe. It is a refreshing awareness that he poses to his audience about challenging the pessimistic default setting in our brains and challenging ourselves to find a brighter mindset for the sake of our own sanity.