MEMOIR | PERSONAL ESSAY | TELL YOUR STORY

You Don’t Need Permission to Tell Your Story

You own everything that happened to you

I write memoir. I never intentionally set out to be a memoirist, but I’ve found I have an affinity for it. Something about writing such intensely personal essays appeals deeply to my insightful, reflective nature. I like to ruminate. I believe by thinking about things, we find answers and, if we’re lucky, peace.

I’m ever mindful, however, that my memories don’t include only me.

Others were involved, some who might shine much more favorably in someone else’s story than in mine. There are some who lived my story alongside me who remember things much differently.

Sometimes I wonder if the sky is blue in their world, but I leave them to it.

There are those who may be hurt or offended by my story, which of course, is never my intention, but I can’t control their feelings. Illusions often die a very painful death. I have heard objections that what I wrote isn’t what happened at all.

They don’t remember it that way.

We all have filters that affect our experience of any event. We have internal, emotional defense mechanisms to protect our fragile inner beings. If those protections didn’t exist, life would be impossible. We see life through our own eyes, and, no matter how empathetic we are, no one else’s.

It saddens me to wonder how many powerful memoirs will never be written because of social pressure to be silent. People are coerced into behaving as if their own lives never happened just to please someone else.

Tell your stories anyway.

Not all memoirs are tragic, of course. But I know of no life that was lived without at least one or two scoundrels to make it interesting.

He that has no fools, knaves, nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning. ~ Thomas Fuller

Some of us have more of those characters in our family than average. I seem to have been especially blessed in that department.

And so, when others, perhaps well-meaning family members or friends, take issue with a story, or say it shouldn’t be told because it might make somebody else feel badly, or show someone in a poor light, I say this:

This is my story.

If someone doesn’t like hearing about it, doesn’t think it should be said — if it makes them uncomfortable — perhaps they should examine their reaction instead of the tale. I would suggest that it wasn’t much fun for me, either.

If you saw things differently, then by all means tell your story. But this one belongs to me. I earned the right to tell it.

Leo Tolstoy famously wrote that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” If he’s correct, then it makes sense that each member in the family drama, especially in the unhappy ones, would have their own life script.

Their own unique story to tell.

A happy childhood or life is a beautiful thing; but it’s the unhappy ones that are interesting, or so it seems to me. If that were not so, we would all die of boredom and memoir wouldn’t be so popular.

But it takes courage to tell the unhappy stories.

I’ve discovered the beauty, the gift, of writing memoir is that it helps us to step back, detach, to view the circumstances presented from a different perspective. It can allow reflection, meaning, closure. Sometimes strangers find release in the reading of it, a relief in knowing they weren’t the only ones.

Having someone we don’t know validate our feelings or find their own validation is extremely rewarding.

This is my story. I had to live it, and so I own it. It’s mine to write about, and to find peace in the telling of it. Kindred souls are drawn to it, discover it, hear it, and find their own peace in knowing they weren’t alone.

If I bring that value to others, then everything I’ve done, or that’s happened to me, has been worth it. I’m no fan of victimhood, and while it’s true that I did overcome some huge obstacles, I’m not a big proponent of ‘survivor’ mentality, either.

In retrospect, I can see I did survive some awful things, but I refuse to let that label define me. I write about them so that I can see them objectively and take away their power to negatively affect me.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” ~ Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

When I write a personal memoir, it’s my story, the way I saw it. This is my viewpoint. If I had to live it, I get to write it. That’s how this works. Nobody owns my story but me.

I don’t necessarily want to forget the years gone by and I’m not even certain that’s possible. But I’ve found that by virtue of memoir, my past becomes manageable, even valuable. I begin to understand it and make peace with it. I learn from it.

Memoir is a way of shining light on the past, not writing over it. No matter how hard we try to erase the dark parts of our portrait, a faint outline will always remain. But that’s okay — it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate you, always.