A Fuzzy Line and the Razor’s Edge
I’m about to cross a line, and I feel it.
As I get closer to publishing my memoir — Diamonds in the Dirt: Stories from a Junk Yard Girl — I can feel the tension building inside. If I’m honest, my stomach is tight, and I notice my jaw clenched as I write this.
Yes, it is a bit of excitement at finally approaching the finish line of this personal goal I’ve had for over seven years. Yet, my tummy is telling me it is more than that.
Hasn’t someone said the body doesn’t lie? Hmmmm…. This brings me to the main topic today. Truth.
This is a theme I have visited here before (forgive me as I continue to process this deep and complex subject for myself .....writing about it is part of my process)….
I am about to cross a line. Sometimes, it feels like a fine line or a fuzzy one. Other times, it is sharp and potentially painful … like a razor’s edge.
It’s the same feeling I felt as I hung over a deep crack in a glacier that I couldn’t see the bottom of.
Let me explain.
In the foreword and afterword of my book, I address the concept of truth. Memoirs strive to be truthful. After all, it is about my life, which is undoubtedly not a fictionalized story.
However, having come out the other end of experiencing childhood abuse, my memory is slippery and amoeba-like.
My memories skip a bit, like music played on a damaged LP. Truth is a fuzzy and fine line. I gingerly step my toe over - knowing the truth of the situation may or may not be “my truth.”
Then the sharper edges appear — the ones that are more than a line and feel like cliffs I must leap off. The painful memories come to me like lightning bolts, casting a brief light on parts of my life that have long been hidden deep in the darkness – in the shadows of my imperfect memory.
I am a storyteller — I always have been - and always will be. This comes in handy as a writer but was a superpower I developed as a child.
I learned to use my story -- my “power of pretend” -- to make stuff up so I could fill in (and cover up) painful bits, enabling me to feel better, fit in, or step into the person I thought you wanted me to be. This allowed me to take on the persona I felt the specific situation required. It helped me navigate life successfully.
My superpower made me cunning, sharp, and always on alert. I made shit up. After a while, I began to believe my stories, and eventually, they became my truth.
Truth is in me; I’ve spent a lifetime digging to find it and learning to be true to myself. The irony is not lost on me that I am a life and relationship coach supporting others to live an authentic life. Even my company name -- b.u. coaching – is about being true to oneself.
Being authentic is essential to me. Being truthful is, too.
The question is, can we be authentic and true at the same time?
Truth is a line we navigate throughout our lives.
“Decide what your truth is. Then live it.” ― Kamal Ravikant
From being a coach, I know the vital role the stories we make up play in navigating life and the world. We all makeup stories all the time. It’s just that we may not be aware of it in the moment. Our story is the lens through which we see things and interpret them. This is why we can witness the same situation, yet our stories will differ. Which one is true?
So often, when I’m coaching a couple around some recurring conflict in their relationship, we start with recognizing the stories we tell ourselves around the situation and how those stories influence our behaviors and can become habitual patterns in our relationship. Eventually, we aren’t even aware of why we make the judgments we do behind the scenes, but we behave as if the stories we are making up are real. To us, they are real. They are the truth.
Our stories are the lens through which we see and experience everything.
The dance of that couple I am coaching can go on for years, each of them caught up in their own story -seeing and experiencing life via their own lens. It isn’t until we stop, pause, and look at what is happening — find and dig for the ‘truth’ -- that we can see how our stories are the lens through which we interpret our partners’ actions without checking it out with them. It isn’t until we pause to check in with each other, ask questions (and truly listen to the answers) that we can see what is happening here.
We all tell ourselves stories. If as a child, we were left alone a lot, when our partner is late or a friend keeps canceling plans with us - they may have legitimate reasons - but we will jump to old beliefs that reinforce our story that we are not important or that they don’t love or care about us. We may have made this story up to make sense of the original hurt.
This is how I became a master storyteller. My stories were the salve that smoothed the rough edges and pain growing up in the junkyard. As a junkyard girl, I often felt like the pieces of junk that surrounded me. I wasn’t - but living inside a different reality - my story — was one way I could “make sense” of my situation.
Fast forward to me now — a 63-year-old writer coming to terms with her past by writing about it. Yes, writing my story —and sharing it — (jumping off a cliff, anyone?) is a part of my healing journey.
I write to understand.
I write to explore.
I write to accept.
Despite many writing teachers urging me to share my story via a more traditional chronological timeline, I wrote my memoir as a collection of individual stories or essays that skip in time and jump a bit - as this is how I recall my life.
I hope readers of my memoir (and hopefully that may mean you!) will stick with me as my stories jump time and are grouped by theme rather than the traditional storyteller’s chronological beginning, middle, and end structure.
The razor's edge for me is to tell my story how I recall it. To be true to the little girl inside of me — knowing some of what I remember may be based on stuff I made up to survive.
Does that make my memoir untrue?
Right now, I am sitting on that razor's edge because I have given my final manuscript to all of my siblings for their review. I am terrified that they will not recognize the stories therein and thus expose my truth as an untruth.. as a lie. I am risking to share with my siblings - -and the world -- “my truth and my story”.
“You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.” ― Brené Brown
A friend I was talking with recently made the valid point that even if what my siblings recall is “their truth,” who is to say that both of our realities – our stories are true?
All I know is that I want my book to be my truth —as messy and complicated as it is
That is my razor’s edge.
I’m about to jump off this cliff by publishing my book.
Arghhhhhhh. This is scary but exhilarating. I’m glad that you, my dear readers, are with me. I couldn’t do it without you.
Deep breath with me because I’m about to jump off!
Laurie, This captures the essence of the dilemma.... I, too, will take the step of sharing with those who appear in my memoir. My arms have goosebumps just considering the action. But, in my 6th decade, I have more confidence than I did at 20, 30, etc. The human experience is always going to be messy. I'm tired of curating for everyone else. Head up Heart open. Sharing your articulate take on this precipice is brave, too.
I love your idea of telling your life story through many scenes, organized by theme. I would be hesitant to give siblings a rough draft..unless you have nerves of steel...youngest of 5 here, and just now, at 62, really getting the not so pleasant role I had in family dynamics.
You got me interested in your book!