Your journal prompts this week:
How often do I share stories from my life with people outside of my immediate, intimate circle of close friends/family?
When do I feel it is safe to share stories from my own life?
When have I enjoyed hearing the personal stories of others, and how have they benefited me?
Who would enjoy or benefit from hearing my personal stories?
I come from a family of storytellers. We spend a lot of our time together as a family telling stories from our childhood and sharing stories about our current life experiences. We also love to talk about the lively or more villainous characters in our lives—the bad bosses, the difficult coworkers, the estranged friends, etc.
It wasn't until I was an adult and started introducing outsiders to my family (such as a new boyfriend, before I was married) that I realized this constant storytelling wasn't for everyone. I didn't realize that it didn't always come across as fun and friendly and maybe was a bit intimidating. On more than one occasion, I had someone I introduced to my family say something to the extent of, "They were really nice, but they didn't really ask me anything about me."
That feeling I got when someone first said this to me was very similar to the sharp pang I felt in my gut when one of my childhood best friends said to me in middle school when we were on the phone, "No offense, but whenever we talk on the phone, we always talk about you."
I took great offense to that observation, of course, and my friendship with that friend was never really the same after that. I mean, how dare someone call me out on my pre-teen shit?
These are just some small examples that might point more to personality flaws in myself and my family than anything else, but I think it's also tied to a greater question I've been mulling over for most of my life:
Is telling our own stories selfish or self-centered?
It might not be surprising that as a young writer, I most enjoyed writing personal essays and memoir. This led to a lot of workshop critiques where the mean girls in the class would inevitably say to me, or write in the margins on my printed pages, "Why would anyone care about this, Marcy?" But for every mean girl that would say that, I'd also get feedback from someone else that said, "I totally get this! I feel this way too!"
And then there were the elite writers I had as professors in college and grad school, the ones who had written amazing works of creative nonfiction that had won awards. "I find memoir to be a little selfish," one of them said. He preferred to tell the stories of others that wouldn't otherwise be heard, a very noble cause indeed, and I do think that's important. You can't really argue with that. But I don't see how that makes memoir a lower form of writing.
After all, isn't it powerful to hear someone's story directly from them, in their own voice, and not translated through a third party? It seems like a powerful act to claim and tell your own story.
I believe everyone truly has a story, and that's why I will forever be a fan of memoir writing, regardless of what the literary elite might say. Of course, those who have overcome great odds or who have led extraordinary lives have great stories and we probably will hear those more often. But sometimes I think we all love to hear a really good story about an average person doing average things that we can totally relate to, that makes us feel less alone, or that makes us have a good laugh about our own lives. I believe there is room for all of these types of stories, the ordinary and the extraordinary.
And as a reader, I've always appreciated writers who can take the seemingly mundane aspects of their ordinary lives and turn them into a great story, one that makes you look at something in an entirely new way, one that takes an everyday situation and extrapolates into commentary or insight on the state of our society, our inner lives, or our relationships. You leave these stories saying, "Oh wow, I never thought of it that way."
Telling our own stories though does require a degree of self-absorption. In the moments we are telling them, if we want to tell them well, we have to be willing to immerse ourselves back into that time, to bring out all the little details and the feelings.
And depending on the story and any unresolved feelings attached to it, it might require us to really look deeply at ourselves in a way that feels confrontational and scary. When you combo this fear with the fear of seeming self-centered or egotistical to the rest of the world, not telling our stories and instead telling other people's (or fictional) stories becomes the logical, seemingly obvious choice.
I think this is a damn shame.
We lose an opportunity to deeply connect with others and with ourselves when we suppress our stories. And I think it's perfectly okay to let ourselves be self-absorbed sometimes, especially if it leads us to share stories that may help even just one person feel less alone.
Of course, I recognize there always needs to be a healthy balance. Clearly, I've had moments (and my family has had moments) where we got a little lost in the stories and forgot about our audience. We have to remember that there's a reader or a listener engaging on the other side, who has a story too, and they might not feel as comfortable jumping in and sharing just yet. You can be a good storyteller, but you also need to be a good editor and good listener. (And as you can tell by the length of these essays week-to-week, the editing part is something I'm still working on! And I'm okay with that, cause it is just another part of my story.)
I want to give you all permission to be a little self-absorbed. Explore your feelings around personal stories—how you share yours and why you like to hear others. And I hope it inspires you to share and connect, and to reclaim the byline of your own story.
Have you ever stopped short of sharing your personal stories because you were worried you'd seem self-centered? I'd love to know your thoughts and experiences with this. Feel free to share in the comments below. And if you’d like, I will pull an Oracle or Tarot card to offer you additional insight, just let me know you’d like to receive a message in your comment.
With much love and gratitude,
Marcy
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