Why It’s Time To Share Your Story

Because real life is messy, it hurts, and sometimes you get stuck with the rotten apple

Beginning in May 2020, protests began rocking not just the United States, but over a dozen countries worldwide. Black or blue, red or white, yellow or purple — we have so much to learn from each other. A year before Covid-19 and George Floyd, I blogged about a class I took and how difficult it was to dig deep, to share one’s authentic self. But when we did, there was understanding, connection, and compassion. Today more than ever, may we all have the courage to share our stories, whether to one or many others, to build bridges not walls.

Ten Wednesdays we braved snarled and snaking traffic through Downtown Los Angeles, hopeful scribes in the acclaimed UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, on a quest to uncover hidden stories.

Our beaming instructor like a mama hen had the gift for prodding while cheering on our pack of untethered, soft, crazy, funny chicks running in literary circles, falling over, getting up, falling more, finding in our group a weekly haven and the safety to foray to our inner selves.

On the surface, our differences seemed to keep us in separate social boxes. And yet our shared humanity on the page amazed me.

Reality vs. Social Media

A typical social feed promotes a kind of fairy tale: here’s my stunning food…my flawless (and heavily filtered) selfie…me “living my best life” in an exotic locale.

And then there’s real life.

Life that’s messy, that hurts, that hands us the one rotten apple in the bag.

Maybe we wanted to hide behind shades and travel and T-shirts and too-much-to-drink and too-much-Netflix and whatever else would distract us from discomfort. But that didn’t happen on Wednesdays.

Splinters of Light

Instead, inside my fellow writers I saw splinters of light refracted off laughter.

On Wednesday, I saw a girl with a smoldering glance who kissed a boy who dreamed of love who lost a piece of innocence the day the boy and a tree collided. The tree survived, the boy did not.

I witnessed a woman broken by rejection, rising by the light of the moon, her courage shattering us as we saw who she really is: a warrior, a princess, ourselves.

I heard a fantastical, powerful, and enigmatic voice like an ethereal spirit, glowing and resonating with those around her, remembering the child curled on a towel on the bathroom floor.

I saw a fair lass with courage and grit, her pen holding a mirror to the heart of a 17-year old who lost an anchor in her life, then in steady imperceptible steps made sense of the senseless.

I saw the face of integrity in a man whose greatest contribution may lie ahead, whose bravery cost him his wife and children when he stopped denying his bisexuality.

I found myself perched on a kind of balcony, a byproduct of age, looking down and back through time at seasons of awesome, of emotional austerity, of you’ve-gotta-be-kidding-me — every season unlike the one before.

Why Your Story Matters

On Wednesdays, we went to unspoken places. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t feel brave, but it was. Arrayed around the classroom, reading our essays aloud, unvarnished authenticity could be sobering or bracing or fraught or make me smile. The grief of loss. The pain of separation and loneliness. The fear of revealing one’s truth, knowing rejection will follow. Yet we laughed too.

Every week, I saw words yearning to be set free. To find a tribe. To move minds to action. To create a better society for all.

When you share your story, you invite others into your world. When you take us with you on your journey, we too, feel less alone.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. — African Proverb

Original version, inspired by a UCLA X Creative Nonfiction II workshop, published at http://dreamhealcreate.com on February 26, 2019.