What I Wish I Had Done Before I Wrote My Memoir -- One Small Thing That Would Have Helped Me Feel Strong When I Was Done

I had this idea when I was working with my memoir-writing group because I didn’t want these writers, at the end of the year when they are done with their project, to feel the way I did when I finished You Don’t Look Adopted.

I mean, I felt good because I had finished, but it took me about three years to feel healthy. Proud. Strong. Worthy. Creative. Valuable.

And here’s why: I spent all my energy when I was writing my memoir to describe feelings that had been trapped in my body, my guts, my skin, my brain, my hands. I spent all my energy trying to create a cohesive narrative out of bits of the past that mostly either made me feel shame or sadness or grief. I turned from a spinning top to a microscope, and in doing so I finally let myself see the thorns that had been tearing apart my sense of safety and belonging most of my life.

I got really good at languaging pain. I had fully entered the room of my past. I sat down in it. I lay down.

Can you guess how I felt after I left NYC, turned my manuscript into Amazon, and faced the day?

It was not good.

So here’s what I think would have helped:

I wish the first day I sat at that beautiful big white table in the famous author’s house, I had taken out a bunch of magazines and started ripping out pictures. I wish I had made a pile of pictures of how I wanted my book to feel—what I wanted to convey in its pages. I wish I had also made a pile of pictures of how I wanted to feel after I was done writing. I wish I had made a pile of how I wanted to feel in the future because then I would have had a target bigger than the sad satisfaction of getting the language about trauma right. I wish I had created a collage that showed a picture that made me think of spirit, one that made me think of strong women, of hearts, of communities of people, of embrace.

I wish I had kept one foot in the present moment while I dove into the past so that, when I was done, the act of finishing would also have been the act of moving forward, of using the past as rocketnfuel for the best fucking life possible from the moment of done forever and ever after.

I could have written my book with both collages pinned to the wall in front of me. I could have been reminded of where I wanted to be, two places at once: past and present/future. I would have had a picture of where I was headed in both the book and in my life after the book. Maps of intention.

I would not have written a different book—I just would have had a clearer idea of where I wanted the book to get me as I moved forward after writing it.

I’m living the collage I would have made three years ago if I’d thought to do it. It just took me a while to get here. I thought maybe I could save you a little time.

Get to work.

The first collage probably represents self, I bet, and the second, when you step back and really look at it, is probably about spirit. First we have to define ourselves, and then, in the finding, we can let go and become part of the bigger picture.

Stars in the sky.

xox