In the final paragraph of this essay about essays my conclusion will be…what the fuck. I don’t know. In 2008, a few months after my son was born, I wrote the words I think I need help in my journal. I was scared I might hurt him. I didn’t know there was a name for what I was feeling, that postpartum depression was a Thing, and it would take three more years for me to be able to look at those words—I need help—without crying. When I sat down to write the piece that would eventually be selected for The Best American Essays 2013, there was a single question pulling me: How do I talk about depression in a way that’s not depressing? I felt that pull throughout my entire body. It made my blood boil, was all I could talk about when I sat with my friends. In his Letters To a Young Poet, Rilke writes that “a work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity.”

In the second body paragraph of this essay about essays I will talk about reading essays. I just read an essay by Roxane Gay that challenged me to read more diversely.

“Essays are terrifying.” “Terrifying,” I said. “Why terrifying?” “Because you have to be totally, completely certain about everything,” she said. “I’m eighteen years old—I’m not certain about anything.”

irony: a statement or event in which the opposite is said or the unexpected happens multiplied times 300 other words we’d be tested on and yes, fine, to this day I can still recite the definition of irony, but it wasn’t until years later, when I walked in on my boyfriend getting down with my roommate that I understood what irony actually meant.

five paragraphs—introductory paragraph, three paragraphs of support, conclusion. Sound familiar? I’d wager we all learned this particular form, and yes, I think it’s vital to know how to organize our thoughts and back up an argument, however, the assumption that there’s only one way to do so is increasingly problematic, especially in light of this country’s current testing culture.