Editing Your Personal Narrative

Aug 9

In preparation for a fall memoir class I’m taking, I had one job: to pull out tangible memories of the past. Photos, letters, gifts, etc. Coincidentally, I’ve been lovingly referred to as a “pack rat” in which I keep seemingly unimportant things. I’ve never been more thankful for my “pack rat” ways as I am now. As I moved boxes around in my spider-web, stale-air storage room, I dusted off the ones that felt relevant and brought them to my office.

I started with the photos. And while looking through them, that sly sense of nostalgia crept in. I felt the pinch of tender love in my chest as I grazed photos of yesteryear and memories long gone. The action of seeing people and places and times of the past generated a lot of thoughts about who I’d become, how different I was from some of the pictures of myself in the past.

But it wasn’t until I got into the letters that things started to get real.

In the chaos of our life, we turn to things that are familiar and comforting — for me, that’s often my journal. And I’ve gone back and reread the journals of my youth many times. Nothing, and I mean, nothing, beats that first time reading through them though. That initial shock of seeing your own thoughts, feelings, and situations can bring up so many emotions. But in all the turning inward, I think we forget the other side of personal narrative. The edits and revisions through the lens of other people in our lives.

In re-reading some of these letters, I felt the whole range of emotions spill out of me. I laughed. I sobbed. I did both at the same time. With blurry eyes and snot running from my nose, my teenage years flashed before my eyes. The good, the bad, and the really really ugly.

It’s hard to explain the moments I felt after reading these letters except to say that it was an “awakening” of sorts. I think I needed to read those letters at exactly this time in my life as I stand at a crossroads of sorts. You know the kind — where life is just puttering along and you realize that you’ve puttered long enough — it’s time to make a change. You don’t exactly know what that change is or why it’s happening now, just that you know it’s coming.

Reading these letters broke a dam inside of me. I’m not lying when I said I felt it move through me. Through the tears, I found myself clutching these letters and rocking back and forth. As if these letters were a beacon to come home to a place I didn’t know was home.

I understand now why the memoir teacher wanted us to do this — because in the midst of these tangible memories, there are undeniable seeds of truth that we have not yet uncovered. Material ripe for memoir work. And in these seeds, I see so much growth (which is somewhat the point, I believe). I won’t share these letters in depth here because I’ve realized they are the “starters” to the memoir work I’m meant to do this fall, but the impact these letters had on me has set something ablaze within me. I knew I had to get out these initial feelings to make room for the deeper work that is coming. But in full transparency, I wanted to write this article to begin the conversation. In a way, it’s my contribution to the reality that we don’t exist in a vacuum. That beneath the narrative we craft for ourselves, there’s a whole other compendium written by others. Does that mean we have to ascribe to those narratives? Of course not. But you do get a chance to view yourself from a different lens.

And in reflecting on the takeaways I wanted to share in this article, one thing became really clear to me. Everything I’m learning (or re-learning) are things I already know or knew about myself. But as they saying goes, I didn’t see “the forest for the trees.” I didn’t have the context of life to show me the meanings. But I have more of the context now. And, I see it as a personal responsibility to look at what I didn’t see then.

Example One:

The first two letters I read were from my mom and dad (individually) on my 18th birthday. If you can remember being eighteen, you’ll nod your head with me when I say that self-awareness and learning life lessons were not at the top of the to-do list. I had much more important things to worry about at that time like figuring out which decorations to use in my dorm. How many weeks could I go without driving home to do laundry? I remembered at that age, feeling so lost in this big wide world. Who was I? What did I want to be when I “grew up?” My parents, especially my mom, fulfilled the role of encourager and supporter, but it wasn’t until I read these letters that I realized how much of who I am was being reflected back to me (positive and challenges!).

As someone who has not only developed a deep intuition but attachment to my “gut”, this line from my mom really stuck out to me:

“You have the drive — just figure out where you want to go and you will get there. Try not to worry so much and really stick with your gut. Most times it will lead you down the right path.”

If only I had been wise enough to take what she said to heart. If only I’d realized at that age how true the statement would become. I can see now how right she was but also how much I struggled with what she said. I spent so many of those college years doing exactly what she said not to do. Worrying, wondering, going against my gut.

If you know me (or have read anything I’ve written in the past), you’ll know that my childhood and teenage years were a struggle for me. So when I re-read this line from my dad, I burst out in tears. How was he able to see the strength I couldn’t?

“I’m so proud of the way you have met everything in your life head on, whether it was right or wrong and overcame whatever the problems were.”

I get asked questions, today, about my resilience. And I think there are a lot of reasons why I’ve been so resilient in my life, but this line reminds me that I’ve had it within myself all along. I don’t look back on those years and see the resiliency… I see the heartache, the nights of crying myself to sleep. The yearning to know who I was and who I becoming. But now, I see so much of my strength in others’ eyes. I was strong then, even if I didn’t know or embrace it. I’ve had it all along but it takes time and distance to truly see it.

Example Two:

A more recent (yet it feels so long ago) set of letters that I exchanged with a cousin who was in prison (I could honestly write an entire piece on my thoughts around this, but I will refrain for now). It feels surreal now, but at the time, my cousin was a lifeline I didn’t know I had or needed. These letters were honest, raw and in a way a reflection of the time I was in. She wrote with such conviction that we became friends through our exchanges. I sent her books and had some of my author friends do the same. I was navigating the rocky terrain of being a newlywed, starting a new adventure being self-employed and publishing books. Her words were exactly what I needed at that time in my life, and as I re-read the letters I was struck by something I know more about today — the power of connection. I don’t want to speak for my cousin, but in a way, I feel like I was a bit of a lifeline for her as well. The immediate “connection” we had is SO evident in these letters, and honestly, I’m just in awe of how vulnerable we were willing to be with each other. More than anything, I see the bits and pieces of who I am today thrive in that written relationship. The curious questions I asked her and her willingness to talk about it. I was trauma coaching before I even knew what that was! What I knew to be true then, and something I’ve since dedicated my life to since, is that I knew she had a story to tell. It may not have been a story that she wanted to write down in a book and it may not have even been a story she wanted to tell, but boy, did she have a story in her. And in a way, I felt like we both were able to rewrite parts of our story throughout this time. I will forever be grateful for the lessons she taught me, but also in the now, thankful that even when I didn’t know what I was doing — I was in the trenches, actually doing the work I was meant to be doing.

Example Three:

Let me start off by saying how extremely lucky I feel to have a close relationship with my sister. I work and know many people who don’t have that with their siblings and it breaks my heart because if there’s one person (outside of my husband and furbabies) that I would die for, it’s my sister. And like most siblings who are close as adults, we weren’t always the best of friends. We fought. We said mean, hurtful things to each other. But there’s a special bond that happens when you face adversity together. There were times during my teenage years that my sister was both my burden and my refuge. The person to cry with and the person to cry about. But there was an innate thing inside of me that remained steadfast: the need to protect her. When I came out about my sexual abuse, it was as much about her as it was me. I remember very vividly the way I paced in my bedroom before walking down the two flights of stairs to tell my mom. I remember it so intensely because above the fear, above the selfish need to want to break down to someone about what I was going through, was one thought: you need her to be safe. I knew that no matter what happened after I opened my mouth, it was all for her. In reading some of the letters she wrote me (which are understandably less substantial in their content but never the less still important), I recognize how true to that mission I stayed. The memories she lists in the letter, the way she viewed me as this larger-than-life person to look up to… it fills my heart because never is there more proof to loving someone as it is when it’s reflected back. My blonde-haired, blue-eyed little sister is grown up now, about to have a baby of her own (now that carries a lot of emotions for me!) and I secretly hope that she gives him a sibling so that he has a chance to experience the deep and profound bond and love that my sister and I share with each other.

Conclusion

As you can see, these letters were not just a stroll down memory lane. They were deeply impactful in looking back at the narrative of my life. They allowed me to see that there are some edits and revisions to the story of my life I need to take into account. Most importantly, they have allowed me to see into the past that I haven’t been ready to face until this moment. There’s a reason this intense, intimate work is calling to me right now. There’s a reason these tangible memories are being brought to the surface. And it’s all a reflection of the next iteration of who I’m becoming. Sometimes, we get so caught up in the unraveling of the threads or tapestry of our life, we forget that there are a million tiny little threads others have inserted on our behalf. When we can take stock of those threads, we’re able to see a more complete tapestry than we thought was possible.

And I’m grateful that I’ve been brave enough to find them.