I had this idea to ask a group of adopted people to write the screenplay of their life in 30 minutes. So many of us get overwhelmed by our stories—by past traumas in particular—and getting it “all” down on paper in 30 minutes can feel like trying to put a giraffe in an empty aspirin bottle, but once you do it, you might feel like you can do anything. You are the master of your own story.

That’s the whole point of this exercise—to empower you, the writer. What in your life do you want to save in that bottle? What is important enough to save? What parts do you really, really want to tell? I like exploring with adopted people the concept that we don’t HAVE to tell everything. We don’t HAVE to relive things that were bad enough to feel life-threatening if we don’t want to. Writing doesn’t have to be a punishment for having a life—it can also be a mirror for who you consider yourself to be without other people fucking it all up.

What Melissa did really took me by surprise because she made a story I’ve seen her labor over into thirty minutes of creative license gone rogue. The second-best part to hearing what she wrote was listening to her laugh despite her attempts to be quiet while she was writing.

I’m not saying you have to make a hard story funny. I’m saying it can be empowering to play around with your story and the many ways you can choose to tell it.

Melissa agreed to share her work here, and I hope it inspires you to sit down and have some fun with what you carry inside. She said in an email to me after I showed her this post: I’m wondering if adding something like I had no idea it would take this humorous turn and I was running out of time so it forced me to get very concise and then humor just popped out! Maybe it would empower people to not “think” so much, but just let words spill out and then see where they go. 

I think that’s a great idea.

May 14, 2023 (Mother’s Day)

Messy Melissa

Melissa was a mess. Her mom was diagnosed with cancer when she was nine. Her sister had schizophrenia. Her father was an alcoholic abuser. Melissa met a much older man with money who sold pretty things – art. They had a lot of sex and both knew they did not love each other. Melissa was sixteen. She got pregnant. She used a pay phone to call children’s services to find out how to give her baby up for adoption right after it was born. Melissa went to the unwed children’s home early because her sister was threatening to kill her.

Melissa turned 17 in January. She gave birth to Lisa Jacquel on February 4th. Melissa held her baby and handed it to a total stranger who left the baby to cry, because she was too loud of a crier. By the end of the month Melissa’s mother was dead. Her brother was living a life no one approved of. Her sister had to go to the mental hospital. Her father was living with his mother. Melissa ran to California with a musician.

Meanwhile, Melissa’s baby got sent to three different families who couldn’t stand the crying. Finally, a read headed lady with big breasts and a weird man adopted her and mistakenly named her Melissa. They took her home and she still wouldn’t shut up. She had scratches all over her face and her black hair stood straight up and everyone, like everyone, called her ugly, because well, frankly she was. She was the biggest pain in the ass. The red headed lady with big breasts shoved a bottle in her mouth and held her so tight to her breasts that she was suffocating her. The effect was that at least this baby finally shut up!

The red headed lady with the big breasts and the weird man also had a son, who tried to love the baby, but let’s face it, sometimes it sucks to be told to love someone who is a real downer! So the three of them got together and said let’s put this baby in a box and take her out when we want to play with her, or dress her up, and especially when the neighbors come to visit!

This pain in the ass baby still insisted on waling/crying inside this beautiful box. Afterall, it was a gold box, for crying out loud!

The baby grew up. She thought she was so great that she married this man and had two outrageously beautiful smart children, who if you can believe it, did not even hear her stupid loud crying! Melissa went right on with her life like nothing happened and then occasionally got mad at these people who saved her. I mean the nerve!

Oh I forgot to mention that before that happened, the red headed lady divorced the weird man and married an even weirder man. And the first weird man married a woman with a red scar who had brown ugly hair. Ok so Melissa pretended none of this happened and she was happy. I mean can you believe it? She’s ridiculous!

So anyway, Melissa made beautiful boxes for so many people that she eventually got weary and started making special shoes for people that had magical powers to transport people to wherever they wanted to go. Finally, like fucking finally, she got a pair for herself. They were kind of ugly but that’s beside the point. They took her to so many fantastic places that everyone that had touched her when she was that awful crying baby wished they had those shoes too. But she refused to make any shoes for them! She built a shoe factory that was the best place on the planet for coffee and pie and therapy and connection.

Melissa did even something more miraculous in her silly magical shoes. She made a park where people could go and see why boxes were not good for people or babies. She was able to abolish all box making factories on the planet. She made the world a better place. The word “box” became a bad word that no one used anymore, except when talking about how bad they used to be. Melissa continued to make the park the best place to visit whenever you wanted to learn or feel wonderful. Melissa used most of the money she made to have a beautiful home and property and to donate to the abolishment of box making factories forever!

The End