Finishing
Yesterday I opened my memoir. I had not looked at it in months. Funny thing is, I made a vow to finish it by last March. I didn't keep the vow. Things happened, my priorities shifted dramatically over the past 9 months, with everything from my wedding, to physical injury, and illness, all shifting the winds for me so that I let the book sit for nearly 6 months, untouched. I let myself entertain some guilt about not keeping my word and feeling that I was letting my self down - all the bullshit that comes when we find the need to make ourselves feel small and shitty. In fact, letting that self-imposed deadline slip actually made me shy to come back to it, as if somehow I had lost my integrity around the whole thing.
This morning I notice I am able to let that go. It's simply not true. The book is alive and will live its life through me and be introduced to the world when its ready. When I am ready. This book is my life story and I am the one telling it. I got so clearly this morning when I woke up that every moment of living I have done in the past year in particular, shapes every word I write now. I am telling the story from an ever-evolving perspective and so, when it sits for weeks at a time, the book, and me, are marinating, becoming wiser, clearer and the story easier to tell from a new place. It's perfect, actually.
And I admit that my particular story is not an easy one to write. Each and every time I go back into it, I peel back the scabs from decades old wounds, I have to go into the feeling of that time in order to write vividly about it. Some days I feel strong enough and willing enough to take that dive. Some days I simply don't. It takes something to stare my demons down, to describe them in detail, to drag all the ugliness into the light for all to see. And then to find my way back to self-love and not lose the healthy parts of myself to the darkness along the way. There is recovery needed in between bouts of writing.
The story I write - my story - is one of great trauma, of pain and vulnerability, and above all, hope, self-discovery and pushing past the limits of the hand I was dealt at birth, of moving beyond the limits I myself believed were real. And I still feel it needs to be told. So I'll keep writing, and stopping and starting again until one day, in the near future, I'll release it out into the world and be able to say "I finished it. Here is my truth."
And, as with most things in life, it will be worth the wait.
This morning I notice I am able to let that go. It's simply not true. The book is alive and will live its life through me and be introduced to the world when its ready. When I am ready. This book is my life story and I am the one telling it. I got so clearly this morning when I woke up that every moment of living I have done in the past year in particular, shapes every word I write now. I am telling the story from an ever-evolving perspective and so, when it sits for weeks at a time, the book, and me, are marinating, becoming wiser, clearer and the story easier to tell from a new place. It's perfect, actually.
And I admit that my particular story is not an easy one to write. Each and every time I go back into it, I peel back the scabs from decades old wounds, I have to go into the feeling of that time in order to write vividly about it. Some days I feel strong enough and willing enough to take that dive. Some days I simply don't. It takes something to stare my demons down, to describe them in detail, to drag all the ugliness into the light for all to see. And then to find my way back to self-love and not lose the healthy parts of myself to the darkness along the way. There is recovery needed in between bouts of writing.
The story I write - my story - is one of great trauma, of pain and vulnerability, and above all, hope, self-discovery and pushing past the limits of the hand I was dealt at birth, of moving beyond the limits I myself believed were real. And I still feel it needs to be told. So I'll keep writing, and stopping and starting again until one day, in the near future, I'll release it out into the world and be able to say "I finished it. Here is my truth."
And, as with most things in life, it will be worth the wait.
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