That title comes from Maya Angelou. But I will ask again…What stories haven’t you written or told?
Are you hiding them because you fear you’ll upset one of your family or someone you love?
Have you just not gotten around to writing that story, you know, the one that haunts you, the one you dream about too often – the one that you deeply know you need to tell, because “I don’t have the time?” Or have you simply tucked it away in the basement of your mind?
How does it feel to have it buried in that trunk under the rafters?
These are questions to ponder – to bother you actually – so you might actually put some of the story on paper.
Ask: What if I don’t write this? Won’t I have let myself down?
Ask: What am I waiting for?
Ask the crucial question that the great French philosopher and poet, Gaston Bachelard (1884 – 1962), asked: “What was it for if I cannot speak it?”
Paraphrased, What was it for if you cannot write it?
I am trying to renew your belief in yourself as a creative being.
The above questions may be ways you can begin to foster that creativity: to just put your pen on the page, or your fingers on the keys, and trust that what comes out is really okay. It is you expressing yourself.
Sure, it’s scary to reveal some of your past, so you say, “Wouldn’t it just be better to keep it hidden? Ah, but what about the cost of that?
I spoke with a woman in her 90’s today who told me that her seventy-year-old daughter had a heart attack and nearly died. As this elderly woman shook her head sadly, she whispered to me, “She was always the one who kept everything inside.”
Many of us hold onto our old pain, and where does it go? Into cancer? Into illness of some sort? Into anger? Into rage? Where else is it supposed to go if the stuff doesn’t get expressed?
Writing your stories gives an outlet for the pain.
David Whyte, the poet, says to “Turn the pain into a poem.”
Or, simply turn your life experiences into stories – which may become novels. Then, others could benefit from what you went through. And you could finally let it go, see it from a new light on the pages, and eventually, rise above it and (if necessary) forgive yourself, or the persons involved. All in all, healing.
Wouldn’t it be better to write your story and let go of the “worst agony,” as Maya Angelou states? Give it a try. You might just surprise yourself with what flows onto your pages!
© Melba Burns, Ph.D.