Today I shared an excerpt of my writing with people from work, over Slack, after mentioning that I’ve been writing in our morning video call. It’s from Carrington Rd., and I made some edits to it before posting — just minor bits that I’d picked up on but forgot to address.
There was one bit, though, that I changed in quite a dramatic way, adding a lot of heaviness to a part that had previously alluded to it, without being explicitly clear. I changed this part, regarding speaking to Cody:
Teach him in a way that won’t hurt him.
To this:
Teach him about anger and frustration in a way I’d have wanted to be taught. A way that doesn’t hurt.
It’s not a huge difference in isolation, but it does shift the emotional weight quite a lot, showing a deeper, more personal reasoning behind my motivations, and given how much depth the prior section goes into regarding my attempts to recalibrate myself, I think it offers a great counterbalance to the flow of the narrative — ie., I care so much because I have a reason to. It does make it more about me, but that’s what the story is really, isn’t it?
Huh, it’s weird to think about it like that. I’ve already written about how I’m aiming to take the reader on a journey through my experiences, but I’d never really thought about it as explicitly as that.
I just had an interesting experience of self acceptance. I’ve recorded some voice notes for BJ, they total around 40 minutes long — even though they’re just the first 3 blog posts, they’re filled with tangents and side notes and all questions etc! I listened while washing up and doing other bits, with about 5 minutes left as I returned to my bedroom. I put my phone down on my shelves, near the door to my hallway, and I stood in the hall and looked in the mirror. It was a bizarre experience, I could hear my words, far enough back in time now that they could feel like they were outside of my head, and I could see my self too, looking back in the mirror, my eyes and mouth responding in tiny ways to the words I was hearing, as if from someone else. And I felt like I could see myself there. Happily spouting ponderings, occasionally formulating bizarre mental constructs and laughing, with myself, at the hilarity of them — and it was as though I could see myself, the mirrored me, speaking them. I felt as though I was seeing myself, not as though through someone else’s eyes, but as I myself would see me. And I felt immensely proud to see a person radiating confidence through their words, effortlessly sustaining — and captivating, even — my attention for this whole time.
It’s a rare treat, getting to see yourself through your own eyes, taking your own perspective on yourself without the prior repetitive negative biases we all build up to slander our own character.
I can remember one other time when I’ve felt that. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to have, or perhaps fantasised about having, amnesia: I’ve had that, once, very briefly. I don’t quite know how I got there, but I started to come to while being trolleyed along in a hospital bed, in A&E. A nurse asked me, do you know you name? And I told them, previously unaware, but as I spoke my name, with it came a flood of proud recognition for who I am, how I am truly seen by other people, awareness for everything I’ve achieved, and who I’ve become. She asked, do you know what you do? I said, I’m at university. God, what a triumphant insight that was! To think, I had actually made it into uni, and here I was living a ridiculously hedonistic life, soaking up new information and experiences with people I really, deeply treasured to now know as friends; to be counted among their friends too, these wonderful people I hold in such high regard, seeing how they saw me right back.
I think, considering it now, that I’ve put a lot of effort into giving other people a similar experience, to show them what I see in them, to teach them how right they should feel to be proud of themselves.
With that in mind, the next time I think about an old friend, then mentally discount what their opinion of me might be because of one mistake I made that, in my mind, completely tarnished their idea of me — I’ll take a moment to consider whether I’d be thinking about with such fondness, if the mistakes they’d made were as reputation-destroying as I think they’d be for me. That’s not how I see them, so that’s for sure not how they see me.
The original point of this post was to write up some notes I’d made, and I was building up to that with my story of sharing an book excerpt with work peeps. I’ll circle back to that now.
In the end, the change that I made works so much better for the story, and especially for the excerpt I shared with work peeps, mocked up to look like two pages from a real book, the edit giving perfect balance to both sides.
I was hesitant to do it, though, because I was worried about it being too heavy. But looking back at it now, and considering how it might just be the only part of the book that I share with them, I’m much happier having shared something that’s completely honest, a genuine snapshot of what I’m trying to create; rather than a concession, stripped of the emotional and artistic meaning behind a piece in aid of protecting my ego from hypothetical negativity.
But again, this isn’t quite what I wanted to say here. The point was, I was scared to be real. Maybe I’d have still felt that fear even if I wasn’t sharing it. But I had to make the change, if only to see how it felt afterwards.
(My response, btw, was of almost disbelief at how raw, heartfelt, and bittersweet the excerpt felt now, one of a few times when reciting things recently when I’ve been so taken back to physically exclaim “jesus christ, this is really good“. I even got a bit teary, shocked that something I’d made could accurately convey the depth and complexity of the feelings I’d set out to capture.)
So, finally, on to the notes I made earlier today, the instigator for this piece:
- ALWAYS write boldly. If it feels too raw, write it anyway. Those feelings you’re afraid to write about, you’re not hiding it from other people, you’re hiding it from yourself. And if you have something to say about them, maybe that’s something someone else hasn’t realised yet; maybe you’ve been through something and seen the end, where they haven’t yet. Maybe they need your help to get there.
- If you don’t have a resolution yet — so what? Write about it anyway. You never know what insights you have buried inside you, waiting to come out if you can just let them. Allow those feelings to be heard. Let yourself face them.
- If you’ve stopped mid flow because it feels too raw: Don’t worry about it, keep going, write it anyway. If you edit your thought process, you’ll corrupt your meaning, and you’ll always see a tiny hollowness whenever you read it back. Just say what you mean. It’s ok to be brave, and you never have to show anyone else if you don’t want to. Do it for you first.