Writing Your Story Is An Act Of Self-Love
A friend recently asked me a powerful question. Before November started, I had confided to her that I planned to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time. We are close, and we have spent a lot of time sharing creative space together in the last two years. I felt safe, and knew I would be well supported by her.
Throughout the first couple of weeks, she has checked in on me, and I have shared without being prompted, too. A few days ago, we had a conversation that shifted something in my brain.
The conversation started when I sent her a message that said, “You asked if I was going to write about South Sudan and I said no. Guess what I find myself thinking, dreaming, and writing about?”
It’s no surprise to me she knew this would happen. She spent several evenings listening to me read stories about my time in South Sudan, in the writing group we co-created. She is also incredibly insightful and wildly artistic.
She shot me a couple of text messages, and then I asked, “This thing isn’t going to leave me alone, is it?” I have felt all sorts of ways about my South Sudan experience. I lived there for three years and to give you the cliché version in four little words: it changed my life.
I returned to the United States four years ago, and I still don’t feel I’ve ever been able to properly convey what happened, to anyone. The closest I came to doing this was by sharing stories with the writing group.
I have often felt crazy for continuing to think about it as much as I do. I have wondered if it has permanently affected my mental state for the worse. And this is aside from the questions of whether or not the experience left me with PTSD. I absolutely went through some serious depression because of it.
As a writer, this complicates matters. I’ve often found myself wondering if it’s an issue of needing to tell the story, or of needing to just let it go, and move on. As I talked with my friend, I was finally given some clarity.
We continued texting, and then through tears I admitted, “I’m so emotional today, feeling angry, like it was a waste and nobody cares. I’ve struggled with this for a long time but always shut myself down about it.” Then she asked the perfect question.
She said, “If no one ever cared except the part of you that needs to tell the story, would that be enough to honor it?”
“It has to be,” I said.
“That is self-love, my friend,” she said. “That is true self-love.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~Maya Angelou
Writing your story is an act of self-love.
When we are ready, the messages we need to receive will reach us. After we talked that day, I thought about the self I was when I lived in South Sudan. I thought about that younger woman who arrived, on fire. I thought about how cold she was by the time she left.
I thought about all she went through. All the life and death and beauty and suffering she drank through a firehose. I thought about her aching and her joy. I thought about her devastating loneliness and her immeasurable gains in human connection.
I realized that self has been there all along, waiting patiently to collaborate with the self I’ve become. I had some healing to do, but now I’m ready. I’ve finally reached a place of being able to tell the story. It’s like something opened up once I faced myself.
I had often struggled with wondering how I’d be able to write the story from memory alone. Especially because of the amount of trauma I suffered, it would be pretty difficult to do so.
Then it dawned on me how perfect it is that I kept a monthly art journal while I was there. I documented every highlight in words and pictures and artifacts. The then-self knew she needed to do it, even if she didn’t know why.
Then I remembered how much I’d journaled. I looked up my old writings. I wrote 62,550 words in my computer of raw journaling while I was in South Sudan. And that’s not including the handwritten material. I have at least two full notebooks of handwritten journaling as well. Again, the then-self, writing darling that she was, knew it was a good idea to take notes.
In the last few days, since all this happened, I have been writing the story. I’ve weaved in some writing I had already done, that fits. And I’ve created fresh material. It feels natural and right. It’s almost as if the story is thanking me for finally listening and giving it some air to breathe.
Writing your story is an act of strength.
As I started going through my old notes from South Sudan, I found this Hemingway quote:
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway
It reminds me of Kintsugi. This is the Japanese practice of using gold or silver to bind broken pieces of pottery back together, thus making a brand new creation. It is a powerful, beautiful art form.
Writers have an opportunity to do this. We can choose to take the broken pieces of our lives, and create beauty with them.
All stories are not exactly the same. There will be some variation in hardship. Some variation in beauty and love and adventure and everyday living. But we all share the human experience.
And yet, we are the only ones who can truly access, and tell our own stories. You are the only one who can write your story.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to own your story, and tell it. You don’t need outside sources to validate your story. All you need to write your story is the ability to love yourself. And the strength to do it.
I’ll ask you what my friend asked me.
If no one ever cared except the part of you that needs to tell the story, would that be enough to honor it?
Love yourself.
Honor your story.
Lend your strength to others as you fill the broken places with silver and gold.
