Healing and transformation

I just found a big piece of the puzzle

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This seems like the opposite of what "good"—or at least publishing-oriented—writers do, but I am very close to completing a rough draft of an ~84,000-word memoir that I'm not sure will ever see the light of day.

Yes, I would like it to be published.

But the time and circumstances at present are not right. And as a result, I have not followed the path of drawing up a proposal and shoring up sample chapters and pitching agents. I have just focused on writing for the sake of writing.

The bones of this memoir started forming as an exercise last year; a self-directed practice in which I challenged myself to write 80,000 words in 80 days as a way to examine my memory and personal story. I was inspired by Stephen King’s “On Writing.” It has always troubled me that my memory is as replete with gaping holes as it is vivid moments, and King’s description of his own spotty memory was validating.

Brain dumping 80,000 words was not difficult. I set aside time early each morning to write and I type fast. Some days my writing was stilted and awkward, but most days it flowed, natural and unfiltered. It was a joyous process.

Figuring out what to do with that writing was a whole other ball of wax, which I sorted out last summer through KJ Dell’Antonia (

#AmReading

+

The #AmWriting Podcast

) and Jennie Nash’s book blueprint boot camp. Through KJ and Jennie’s boot camp, I was able to develop an overall arc and narrative drive from chapter to chapter that allowed me to make sense of the pile of essays I had written. I had a clear picture of where I wanted the story to begin and end and how the narrative would unfold between points A and B. It was like magic.

Magic went on hold for a couple of months due to work chaos and getting my eldest daughter off to college, and then in late fall I returned to my blueprint and began what has proven to be a beautiful, grounding practice. I blocked off a 30-minute writing date with myself early each weekday morning, and started to flesh out the narrative against my blueprint. Yes, I had mapped which existing essays aligned with the chapter structure so I did have a lot of content on hand, but in the process of hinging one story to the next, new memories, reflections, and transitions emerged. I ended up doing as much—or more—fresh writing as I did pulling from my existing essay bank.

And something unexpected happened in the process.

I often hear from people that my writing—in particular when I share the difficult things, such as raw and vulnerable parenting moments and the disturbing power imbalance inherent in my first sexual experience—carries a surprising, sometimes startling authenticity. Whether it is due to trauma desensitization or my gives-zero-fucks attitude, I don’t seem to have a shame filter. I feel that every story deserves to be told if a person feels moved to do so.

That said, I have also learned that the way I share can be alarming and even hurtful to the people closest to me. How is it possible, say, that I could be hurting so much inside and not talk about it? I can now see how it might feel as if I am being disingenuous to those closest to me, or worse, that I am writing to amplify the drama of my life experience.

Neither of those things is the case.

Decades of training to stuff down my emotions in service of silence and compliance culture no doubt is in play, but there is also the matter of how my brain processes and makes sense of things. I have realized that the act of writing—brain dumping, working through the words, giving myself the time and space to think about what I am trying to communicate and the impact of history—has helped me uncover patterns, understand myself and others, and consider how one event may have led to or impacted the next.

As someone who has struggled both with emotional fluency and processing hard, complicated things in conversation in real time, it is now clear that how I process and heal and engage in deep, transformative work is through writing. 

It explained a lot.

I do realize that it still may feel strange for me to put my fresh discoveries into the public forum as I come to them, but this is how I show up as a writer and human being.

But back to the book blueprint.

In the past month, I realized that I was living, in real time, a crucial piece of transformation. My original blueprint was fourteen chapters with a very clear end point. But given what I was going through, I realized that I needed to add a fifteenth chapter and end the story in a different place. It has felt right and I have just rolled with it.

This past Friday I experienced an epiphany that felt akin to a crucial moment in “The Fugitive”—one of those movies that I have seen a million times yet can’t scroll by when I see it on TV. It’s the scene where Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) breaks into the one-armed man’s apartment, connects the dots surrounding the murder of his wife, and says on the phone to Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) “Well, I am trying to solve a puzzle. And I just found a big piece.”

About a month ago, given some painful life events, I surprised myself when—in an attempt to verbally process what I was feeling—I described to my husband that I felt abandoned and lonely. I cried when I identified that feeling for the first time, and have cried or forced myself to hold back tears every single time I have thought about or said aloud that feeling since. Given the range of emotions I have tapped into over the last several weeks, it was perplexing to me why that particular feeling was such a physiological trigger.

And then on Friday, as I was working on Chapter 15, it happened to be the point of the story where I wrote about the impetus of these feelings. The words began to spill out and I realized, as I wrote, that there have been a series of specific, painful stages of my life where that feeling of abandonment and loneliness has reared its head, even when I am surrounded by people. 

My eyes burned and leaked as I typed. Once my 30-minute timer went off, I stopped writing and moved on to do a 15-minute yoga practice to attempt to reset before beginning my work day. I ended up sobbing almost the entire time on the mat. I couldn’t have stopped if I tried.

And so I just surrendered and let it go. 

I took this photo right after I finished. I know I look sad, but this is also the face of discovery and release and relief.

Later that day, when my husband and I debriefed on our days, I told him about this moment of discovery, unearthed through my morning writing session. 

And for the first time in many weeks, I didn’t cry when I talked about abandonment and loneliness. Stunned, I stopped and said, “OMG I AM NOT CRYING RIGHT NOW.”

It was both shocking and also made complete sense.

I still wish I was better at processing in real time—verbally, with the people I love—but we can’t be everything, can we?

And whether or not my pages see the light of day, I have in my possession the biggest gift. The discovery of a way to process and heal that helps me make sense of my history, give voice to suffering, delight in the moments of humor and joy, and heal through the reminder of what is in the past, what is real at present, and what I have agency over in my life as a necessary means to move forward.