The Write-Off by Anna

The Write-Off by Anna - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

“Well, I’m still smarter than you so it doesn't matter,” Andrew would say to me after I told him I scored 100% on my spelling test. I rolled my eyes and pretended not to care, but inside, it stung. I would never admit it to my brother, but I was always jealous of his intelligence. He may have been two years older, but that never mattered to me. I wanted to be reading the books he was reading, I wanted to carry the big notebooks with the complicated equations and the computer-screen calculators. On our walks home from school, he would show me the thick, hardcover chapter books that he had in his backpack. Andrew always had one book for fun, and one book for school. At night, I would steal Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from his room and stare blankly at the words, fantasizing about reading them one day. It felt like I was holding a treasure chest, but missing the key.
As soon as I could write complete sentences, I had a plan on how I would finally beat my brother. One thing he had not done yet was author his own books. How could a reader ever be smarter than an author? So that’s exactly what I did. Every chance I had, I was writing, illustrating and “publishing” new stories. I made hard copies with cereal boxes, and stapled pages until the stapler broke. As my reading began to progress, so did my writing. I finally was able to articulate my imagination like I had never been able to before. My passion must have caught the attention of other students because people began asking me if they could join in. “I’ll be after Ashley after Shae after Allie,” they would argue. Before I knew it, I had a list of future co-authors that would create books with me. My big break came when our librarian allowed my best friend Kayla and me to add our newest book to her library. We were completely ecstatic. No one could get us to talk about anything else for weeks. My brother wasn’t impressed, of course, but I didn’t care. This was my secret plan, a quiet competition only I knew the rules to.
But as we got older, something started to shift. The bubble of comparison I was living in started to fade into the background of my mind. My brother started to ask me questions about what I was writing, or even show me how to use quotations to add dialogue and elevate my writing. I realized that maybe I didn't need to outsmart my brother at all. We were chasing different kinds of knowledge. There was something about turning scraps of cardboard and paper into something that had meaning that was so special to me. My books were finally something I could be truly proud of. He found a love in math and science and I found mine in creativity and words. I did not know it then, but my books would become a testimonial for my progress in literacy. As my mind matured, so did my writing. My growth as an intellectual completely transformed my books into my own unique style. My books became the write-offs to the negativity in my life. Each page became a release of the comparison I had dealt with my whole life. A reflection of my resilience and a testament for what is to come.
I always say that comparison is the thief of joy, and in some ways it was. For a long time I let it keep me from appreciating what I was achieving. But in reality, comparison was my drive. Writing even pushed me beyond what I believed I was capable of. What started as a rivalry led me to my greatest joy. Even to this day, I may not be authoring books like I used to, but the creativity I gained from storytelling is a valuable skill I use in so many aspects of my life. I learned that comparison, if used the right way, can be a powerful motivator to grow beyond the limits we believe we have for ourselves. Though my brother and I now walk different paths of life, we still walk them together, still comparing notes, but no longer needing to compete. In trying to be like my brother, I gained something way more important, my own voice.