Why Didn't I Write About Trees........by Julianna Rowe

                                          “Why Didn’t I Write About Trees?” 

 Why Didn’t I Just Write About Trees?

Sometimes I wish I had written about something else.

Birds, maybe. Or manners. Or how to buy a nice scarf.

Nice subjects. Calm subjects. Subjects that don’t make people uncomfortable.

But the truth is, people don’t write because their life was calm and polite and full of well-folded scarves.
People write because something hurt them, confused them, fascinated them, or changed them.

Nobody stays up at 2 a.m. journaling about a maple tree because it broke their heart.

I didn’t choose my subject by accident.

My subject chose me.

I don’t really write about men.
I write about human behavior.

I write about:

• Why people hurt each other
• Why people misunderstand each other
• Why we stay when we should leave
• Why we leave when we should stay
• Why we repeat patterns
• Why love and pain sit in the same chair
• Why communication goes wrong
• Why we ignore red flags
• Why we try to fix broken people
• Why we want to be chosen
• Why we’re lonely
• Why we’re strong
• Why we survive

Trees are nice.
But human beings are complicated.

And maybe some of us weren’t meant to write about scarves or birds.
Maybe some of us were meant to write about storms. I didn’t write about trees. 

But I understand them now.

They survived every season they didn’t think they would.