Dear Diary,
Wait. No, that isn’t right.
Dear Readers,
I’m writing these entries with you in mind. However, they are adapted from my personal diaries and journals. I struggled over making public my private writing. I argued with myself who told me, “Nobody cares!” I mean people only write their life story if they are a public figure. Isn’t that the norm? I have worried that to do otherwise would be to commit an act of narcissism. Would it? If so, I’m in the season for selfishness. As Toby Keith said, “I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about #1. Oh, my me my! What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see.”
So what is the reason why I must write my story?
There’s several actually. Marvin K. White, Minister of Glide Memorial Church, in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, perfectly articulated one of those reasons in his message, which he delivered on 1/22/23. He said, “We are a writer’s church and that means that (we) believe that storytelling is one of the ways that we get to liberation and one of the ways that we get free from the narratives that are being told about us that we are not participating in.” He practices what he preaches by the way.
Every Sunday at Glide, a writing prompt is given along with free pens and journals.
Additionally, I made my story public because the former version of me would’ve liked to have had access to all this information compiled in one place. And while my story may only be for a few select populations, I suspect my current and future family will eventually fall into one of those groups. One day, I may even be my own ancestor and the future reincarnated me will appreciate this work. Of course, for simplicity, I am intentionally speaking from a point of view that looks at time as linear.
Next, Jordan Peterson said, “Writing is formalized thinking.” Writing my story out of the shadows frees me from informal thoughts about the fear of not being believed. Writer and speaker, Anita Moorjani, talked about learning to tell her story fearlessly. She said, “I don’t care if people think I’m delusional. This is what happened to me. And I know there are more people it happened to. I know there are a lot of people out there who believe me but they’re afraid of standing up and saying that because they’re also afraid of people thinking they’re delusional.”
Also, I’ve been afraid to come out of the spiritual closet.
To do so means breaking my mother’s heart, embarrassing my children and disappointing my father. Even though I have already been both the scapegoat as well as the black sheep for so long, I still fear the extra layer of rejection that I know is coming. But what I want more than anything, is for my children to repeatedly choose themselves over fear as they go through life. And what I know for sure, is that I can teach that only by being a living example. And so here I am with my story.
My role model faced 💯 fears in 💯 days.
Below is a clip of Mel Robbins interviewing Michelle Polar who notoriously faced one-hundred fears in one-hundred days. Inspired by Michelle’s bravery, I resolved to face my fears through my writing. In so doing, I’ve discovered that walking straight into my fear removes the power of leverage from those who hold my secrets. For example, when Tyrone took the midnight train (plane) back to Georgia, he took with him my passport. It was stamped with the evidence of my secret, my trip to the Dominican Republic where I got my BBL. But now, who cares?
This is one of the biggest screw you’s that I can conjure.
To everything there is a season, including vindictiveness. In my naivety, I told my frenemies my strange hopes, dreams, philosophies, theories, experiences and beliefs. Back then of course, I thought they were my real friends. Now that I know better, I am withdrawing their privilege by recategorizing the once personal information to general public knowledge. And that is at least partly why I talk about subjects that gurus tell us to “keep private.”
Finally, I am telling the story of me to ensure that I am visible to my people, my tribe.
My tribe will never find me if I remain hidden. In the video above, Michelle said that we hide ourselves by creating a “fake filter” because experiencing rejection is scary. Showing my real self through my story is scary. But as @imstyxriver says in the video below, “Genuine people exist. You just have to be authentic enough for them to find you.”
If you hold out, and you don’t fall out, you’ll find out.
If you read the entries in chronological order, you might think you know where my story is going. But as my ex-husband likes to say, “If you hold out, and you don’t fall out, you’ll find it.” You could skip ahead, though, read the three part belief series and then come back and continue in order. Then you’ll find out that as much as I talk about astrology, numerology and the like, I don’t consider those to be any more valid than the beliefs of the religious fundamentalist cult into which I was born. And with that knowledge, you may read from a different perspective.