I’ve just finished writing an essay that is one of, if not thee hardest essay I’ve ever written.
Okay, as soon as I write that I think of other essays that felt difficult, like every essay in grad school. So maybe it is just the struggle. The struggle is real, but there is something about writing a personally challenging piece (on motherhood, of course) that feels deeply refining, like fire.
It burns us out a bit, and yet, the burn is good for our souls. I can see the writer and person I’m becoming, still becoming at 62, because there is so much becoming left to do, thank God, and Lord willing.
This has been a horrendous week for families in Uvalde, TX. I wouldn’t equate anything I’ve been through with what they now face… and those faces. I looked at each one that is no longer with us on this earth, just to bear witness to these beautiful lost lives… What else can we do? (lobby and vote for change)!
For the rest of us, life continues. We write, we mourn, we pray, and we go back to whatever we were doing. As May ends, I’m putting memoir aside again for awhile. But I’m glad I revisited it, and the stories that want to be told, even with all their difficulties.
In June, I return to the epistolary novel, the fiction of memoir/journaling, and I’m excited to get back to it. I feel stronger now in my editing skills, and my ability to reorder the chaos I create, writing as the story comes to me, in fits and spurts. The more we practice shaping our stories into something meaningful, the more we shape our own lives, at least that’s how it feels right now.
Happy writing. I hope you’ll keep the journey going forward, reshaping it as necessary.
PS- the essay on motherhood revolved around one of my biggest failings. I read it with a writing partner and realized it is still too raw to call finished. You can tell when you choke and can’t actually make it through the lines, so there’s that- a new way to tell when a piece is not ready to send out. Prompt- write about your greatest failing, just to get it out and let it go.
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