Oversharing Every Friday
In this odyssey of writing one story a week, I’ve revealed a lot of myself.
We begin where fate throws us and in my family’s world, a good story came before any noun — person, place or thing. My playwright father mined weakness the way a one-year-old devours cake, full throated and amazed by all its creamy richness.
Which makes this honest, gut wrenching writing feel a little like that, only flinging insults at myself is restorative and not what it has been most of my life — a horrifying trauma cycle.
If it’s brave to reveal myself in just this way, it’s certainly been worth it. Nothing I’ve penned isn’t something I wouldn’t confess, it’s just in impressively styled prose, to a wider ranging audience.
My oversharing boils down to a lack of shame and final surrender to the human condition. Nothing I’m telling you can embarrass me unless I’m embarrassed. Which I’m not. Mostly.
I used to worry about not being enough. About being too much. Too fat. Too smart. Too stupid. Now I fear my time is too short, and the people I love will see some truth that even I can’t, that I’ve been what I’ve always feared. A lose-lose all around. Which is only true if I believe it. Which I don’t. Mostly.
Fallout from the beginning of my story sent me searching until I found a perch behind my husband and boys and hid inside their love. It is a glorious place when I let it be, but it isn’t enough to tamp down the constant pull of depression and self doubt. I was holding onto that front so hard, I became sure that if I wanted anything for myself, whether it was a published novel, a great photograph, a sweet melody, or even a piece of cake, I didn’t deserve to earn it. Because in order to, I’d have to pick up the verbal artillery I inherited from my dad.
There is a key difference between us. One that changes everything. My father shot wildly across the bow and didn’t mind where the shrapnel landed. I will only sacrifice myself to the story. Not you.
I began to do it on paper. That’s what all these pieces are really. A way for me to justify my current contentment despite my fair scoops of tragedy. That so many of you have found bits of yourself in them is a surprise and a thrill and makes me look forward to doing it again. Every week.
I’ve chosen offense as my perfect defense for a reason. When I tell you my worst, that I’m quick to annoyance, afraid to return a phone call, petty at unfortunate moments, or frightened to take the next steps whatever they may be, what can you throw at me? It’s always the blindsides that break me.
Inside a well constructed sentence, I am as safe as I am with my created and extensive family. My own shame be damned. I visit scars — yours and mine. For a moment. Or a paragraph. It’s often profound and occasionally earth shattering, but I close the laptop and move past it in the next instant.
Yet something shifts and shakes loose. A ripple in the gelatin self loathing I’ve waited so long to set. Which is my point in taking that journey to the one profound clause that will tie the whole fucking thing together.
This has proved the only way for me to be authentic in the world. Don’t know why. Not even sure how, but I’ve come to truths on this page I never would have otherwise.
If me revealing my way out of decades of imposed self-exile makes you uncomfortable, I’m happy to talk about it. I want to know. But I reserve the right to tell our story later.
Unlike my father, I don’t want to embarrass my family and so they get final approval when it comes to them, and so far I’ve been able to stay on a good side of our line. Suddenly, though, everyone’s a bit more nervous about upsetting me.
The other day, I heard one kid say to the other, “Better not. She’ll write about it.”
So to the wonderful muse friend who worried that I’m being too revealing, you understand. This oversharing is really working for me!
