STILL HERE THINKING OF YOU A Second Chance With Our Mothers
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Guilt

4/8/2013

6 Comments

 
I was writing about a night when my mother was drinking heavily. She was telling me a story I had never heard before, a secret about her own mother. I sat at my computer and typed, but I wondered: why am I writing this? I felt ashamed, guilty, not because of what my mother was saying and doing in this piece, but because I was writing it.

What belongs to me? What am I allowed to reveal?

I feel safer with fiction. There I can disguise, exaggerate, maneuver people and events into place and have it all make sense. Life isn’t like that. You have to take what you get and it doesn’t always make sense. My mother was a good mother, but on the night I was writing about I didn’t think that. I wanted her to stop drinking; I wanted her to be quiet.             

When I read this piece in our writing group I was nervous. I thought, “I am making a mistake.” I was ruining the mother I had been sharing with the others those past months.  When I finished reading they were quiet at first. Then Joan said she felt sorry for my mother. Susan found our intimacy touching. They seemed to understand; they did not judge her.             

We talked about the writing. I listened, took notes, crossed out words or whole sentences.

But what I really needed to know was this: am I allowed to betray her?



                                                   ~Vicki Addesso

            

6 Comments
Rossandra White link
4/10/2013 07:52:40 am

It's a tough one, all right. I had major second thoughts about my memoir, Loveyoubye, when I signed the contract to publish, just a couple of weeks ago. Up until then as I was writing the story I'd have periodic struggles with guilt and re-examine my motive (exactly why was I writing about this?) and wonder if I should just stop. But the thing was I couldn't. For one thing, formulating all those events, some of them from childhood, led me to a greater understanding on so many levels. Therapy? Perhaps. But bottom line, if I'm turning myself inside out to honestly understand with harmlessness in my heart, it might just help others who have/are going through similar situations.

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Vicki Addesso link
4/10/2013 11:52:52 am

Your comment has helped me so much! Because, that is exactly how I feel, but you put it so well:
"to honestly understand with harmlessness in my heart, it might just help others who have/are going through similar situations." Memoir is a means of being generous - opening up and sharing in hopes that another may connect and feel less alone. Thank you!

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Rossandra White link
4/11/2013 12:38:46 am

You said it in those last words of yours!

Nancy MacMillan link
4/15/2013 10:28:53 am

I, too, had concerns with how much I revealed in my memoir, Diary of a Vet's Wife, Loving and Living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because I had to go back in time to help understand myself. Self-therapy, yes. My memoir took 16 yrs to write and with each rewrite I deleted more from my childhood. My memoir came out in Nov 2012. It was then I learned the impact it had on my daughter. She had a copy of the manuscript for years while it was in rewrite. She never read it until now. So it wasn't my mother but my daughter who was hurt. I'm still unsure why but she won't discuss it. My memoir is true and I wanted other families know they weren't alone as I once did. In a nutshell, be aware that the truth may hurt someone unknowingly. If the story is important, you muct be brave. I actually wrote about it in my blog this weekend. Warm wishes, Nancy MacMillan

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Vicki Addesso link
4/15/2013 12:39:20 pm

Hi Nancy,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences regarding memoir. I do believe it is so generous to share your story in order to help others. And yes, sometimes it is difficult for the people in our lives to accept or understand the motivation behind our revelations. But we must trust our hearts, trust our own truth, with the hope that in time others will appreciate the story we are compelled to write. I would love to read your blog - would you send me the link? Thank you so much.
Peace,
Vicki

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Laura link
2/1/2021 03:10:18 pm

Nice sharee

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