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I sat there, talking about Elizabeth Gilbert, Jennifer Lancaster, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs.
"I just can't find my voice." I said, "all of those authors talk about the detailed intimacies of their lives like it's no big deal."
"And why do you think that is?" she asked me.
I thought about it for a second. "I don't know."
"What do all of those writers have in common?" she asked.
The questions were getting a little annoying, but I know she was trying to get me to see the bigger picture.
"Me. Because I read their books." I smiled. As she let out a laugh, I knew that probably wasn't the answer she was looking for.
And then it hit me.
It's about owning and accepting your life.
...Accepting your past in order to get to your brighter future...
...Owning the mistakes you've made, the lessons you've learned and the experiences you've witnessed first-hand when you tell your story...
I've never been good with the whole acceptance thing. Unless it's money or alcohol related.
Why yes, I will graciously accept that crisp $100 bill that I see poking out of your zipper wallet so you can buy me a drink.
See? Easy acceptance.
But accepting the dark and scary stuff? It's too hard.
TWSS.
I've been working on my memoir a lot lately and I realized that I can't find my "voice" until I own my past. David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs are such great writers and they write about the intimate details of their life because they have accepted and owned up to it.
I want to get there, I just don't know how.
Where's "there?"
You know, there. That point in life where you are completely comfortable. You don't cringe when you have to recapture those tragic moments of your life. You don't feel embarrassed when the only reply you get is, "I'm sorry." or "That sucks." You don't feel judged or criticized. You just feel... you.
I know getting there is a long, slow process. It takes understanding and accepting the smaller things (like accepting the act of suicide before volunteering with suicide prevention) to accept the bigger things. It's difficult to accept certain things in life that you feel you could have changed. Or even prevented. At 12 years old, I feel like I could have done or said something to change my father's decision. I felt like I should have done something, even though none of us had any idea something was wrong with him.
Acceptance and ownership could be the missing pieces of my happiness, but at least I know I'm on the right track of getting there. And one day, I'll be able to own my story. And my memoir.
it took me being shoved into a place where i had no options but to own it. i got tired of the dull ache of mediocrity weighing on me every. single. moment. i finally realized that it wasn't ever going to get better until i just owned what had happened, took my past in and digested it, and moved forward. one step at a time. it took me nearly 30 years to get to this place in my life.
ReplyDeleteif it's any consolation, when the scales lift, telling your story just starts to flow like water. it'll come.
Wow that's a difficult task. I always thought the act of writing might lend itself to acceptance, but I guess you just have to be comfortable with everything before you can write it the way they do.
ReplyDeleteI almost feel like there's a correlation between how you view your past and how others view it. By that, I mean you really don't know what to say when you tell them, and then, in turn, they don't know what to say after you say it.
ReplyDeleteI'm NOT a therapist (yet!) but I'm wondering if you worked on how you tell your story. The undertones of your voice, the things you say. When people feel like you're okay with your past, then it'll make them feel a little easier with it.
For example, when you told me about it, I kind of wanted to know more...and not just leave it at "sorry" or "Wow!". I don't know what the difference is between the way in which you told me and the way in which you tell others... though maybe sometimes you tell people out of anger. Like when someone makes a cancer joke or mom reference, you have to be all "Dude, I lost my parents, and I'm a cancer survivor". And they're all "No shit. Sorry!"
This is just a viewpoint, not definitive.
What I do know is that once you accept it, you'll be able to tell when you tell the story. And this will encourage others to accept it. Although you can't control what others do and how they react, you can control the way in which you present things in order to push them in the desired direction.
PS: Also think: How DO you want others to react to your story? If "I'm Sorry" and "That Sucks" doesn't really fit what you're wanting, then what DO you want them to say?