On Writing the Hard Things

I have been afraid of writing heavy things for a long time. I truly believe that the gritty parts of me will make me less of a human. Less relatable. A duck with nothing in a row. I’d rather pen a story about mermaids than being packed into a box because frankly, thinking about the latter is exhausting.

I have listened, instead. I have made a practice of being open about my experiences, but I have never, ever made them available for everyone to pull from. First, I know that everyone has a story and each one is worst than the next. Some are like a sunrise in a snowstorm, but most of the time I find myself standing at the top of a narrow hallway, knowing nothing good comes from the other end of it. Perhaps I’m a dream eater, gobbling up nightmares before they leak into the real world.

I think it’s the fear of being portrayed as a victim that holds me to myself. Somehow I got it into my head that in order to be strong I must already be invincible—never mind all of the gut wrenching work that got me there in the first place. And so my own stories went underground, even when I knew that I drew so much courage from reading about the journey of others.

I don’t know when sharing true stories became so taboo. Why hard things were drenched in shame if they weren’t wrapped up just right in a bow. But I’m tired of looking at pretty things, at watching the parade going on in front of the shit storm. To be clear, I’m not into watching horror movies either—I just wish we could let ourselves be a little more human, allow a little colouring outside the lines. And I especially wish that I had found this courage sooner.

As I have gotten older, stronger, I hopped from one stone to the next, choosing this path, then the next, in order to shape this existence. To grow into the type of parent who can foster the expression of truth in my own children, to give them the confidence to be unafraid. And when you get this far down that road, it can make all that came before seem like a simple nightmare, a dream that didn’t go quite the way it should have.

Here’s the kicker—the older I get, the less I believe my own memories. Because I know now that things can be beautiful, that they can be full of laughter even when things are hard—the nightmares are so far away now that I wonder if they were ever true at all.

So let’s share our stories. Can we start doing this? Let’s bring all these ghouls into the sunlight and watch them burn.