Voice, Ownership, & Breaking the Silence

I haven't made any official announcements here on my blog, with the exception of a badge, that I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge -- so, consider this my announcement; Or maybe a warning; Possibly a proclamation: I am writing with my pants down, so to speak, and it is drafty in here!

My friend Sioux invited me to submit a story to the annual Listen To Your Mother St. Louis Showcase and I've been mulling over what I'd like to write about, especially after my 2019 essay about my mom entitled "Flipping Death the Bird". Mom passed away in the summer of 2020 and I'm not yet ready to write about it... and her death is THE thing I have to write about her first when I decide it's time. My husband suggested I write about my grandma, but my memories of her feel like amorphous ink blots floating in my mind and seem a bit too far away (for now) to gather together and shape into a relatable picture. And then there's my daughter. 

My beautiful, complicated teenage daughter whose role in my life is a story begging to be told. For years I hemmed and hawed about writing this story. Just a few years ago, as I wrestled with the issue of voice and story ownership, I wrote:

Today I am the observer and the thinker. Maybe even the scribe. Because, while my daughter was most definitely the victim of her biological parents’ narcissism and willful ignorance and this is a story about her, this is also the story of me and our family and how we tried to shepherd her from victim to survivor and the toll it took on us. When she is grown, she can choose to tell her own story; but I am here to tell you that this didn’t just happen to her, it happened to us, too.

But even then, I still had reservations and I was never able to throw myself into telling our story. I wasn't comfortable putting all of that personal information about her -- my daughter -- out into the world for anyone to consume. I worried about her reputation and how people would judge her, I worried about her biological parents' reactions and retribution, I worried about her being disenfranchised from her story. 

I still worry about that. 

But, then I read this snippet from "Invisible Heaviness" by fellow Slicer, Amy, featured on the Two Writing Teachers site:

Our stories are our own.  They happened to us and they formed us into who we are, for better or for worse.  Our stories are all that we have.  When we feel the pull to diminish their importance or to dismiss the thing itself, we also diminish the impact that it has on us.  But the impact is really what matters, and it is not for anyone else to determine if it is valid or not.  In the telling of the story, we find an audience –sometimes an audience of only one–  and we are able to clear the air just a bit, releasing the tension and lightening the load.  In the telling about the heaviness, the veil drops and the truths are revealed.  And, ultimately, once that happens, the air thins out and the darkness recedes, at least for a time.

I am ready to break my silence. 

Prepare yourselves, dear readers. Shitty first drafts* are on the way!

*Thanks, Anne Lamott!