love, loss and what i realized

yesterday, my mom and i went to a matinee of Love, Loss and What I Wore, a fabulous play in which five wickedly talented canadian actresses tell stories about life as seen from the shifting contents of a dress rack – that is, funny and poignant and spirited tales about women’s lives, spun around various items of clothing, shoes and accessories. thanks to a friend, we had amazing seats and the show was wonderful, as expected.

i knew going in that i would no doubt be affected by the material, but i wasn’t sure how much or in what way. nora and delia ephron penned it, based on the book by ilene beckerman, so i was confident the writing would be stellar and i was pretty sure i’d love the cast. i was fairly certain some of it would make me cry (it did) and that a lot of it would make me laugh (ditto), but i hadn’t really expected to get a life lesson out of the deal.

even though some of the vignettes were especially moving and powerful, and andrea martin’s hilariously epic rant about expensive purses is a brilliant explosion of marvelousness i so wish i’d written, it wasn’t until the very end of the performance, during a brief wrap-up by louise pitre, that i was metaphorically tapped on the shoulder with a message that seemed directed right at me. despite stories about breast cancer and prom nights and lady gays getting married, it was the proverbial fade to black that actually shone a light instead.

in her closing monologue, pitre’s character explains how and why she put these stories about her dresses and her history together as a gift for a few select friends and family members, and how it unexpectedly wound up being purchased by a publisher for the world to read. she talks about the personal nature of what she’d written, and how surprised she was that, despite the emotional specificity of her work, the stories were connecting with people universally.

and that revelation began reverberating for me... as it pertains to my own writing.

as many of you know, based on my oft-mentioned concerns and fears about exposing my thoughts or feelings or foibles to the world, i’m a pretty private gal. i like knowing (mostly) who’s reading what i’m churning out, especially when it comes to the more tender underside of who i am as a person. having those things revealed to strangers is a risky and scary proposition, and i always get a huge knot in my stomach when i think about some random anonymous reader browsing through the contents of my heart.

i tell myself those parts of me are too personal, too raw, too embarrassing, too intimate, too weird, too lame, too frivolous, too self-involved, too alien, too sad, too confusing, too silly, too different, too insert-whatever-adjective-you’d-like for anyone else to truly understand. i start to worry i’ll automatically be mocked or maligned or judged if i dare share any of them, and that i will promptly become the subject of derision or pity because i am so clearly alone in my experience. so i scurry back into my mouse hole and stress about it until i either don’t post sensitive material at all, or i take a deep breath, put something up and then hyperventilate emotionally until i can bump that entry down with something inconsequential.

but maybe that’s exactly what’s holding me back from growing as a writer.

fear.

worry.

insecurity.

doubt.

not surprisingly, the exact same things i think consistently hold me back as a human being.

and i have gingy to thank for that little epiphany.

despite a show filled with terrific banter and clever insight and heartfelt storytelling, those fleeting closing moments were the ones that resonated most deeply with me. the words slowly seeped into my core, gave me pause, offered up some food for thought and made me realize that, in keeping such a tight lid on what i write, perhaps i’m preventing exactly the kind of movement in my life, progress in my work and meaningful connection with others that i so desperately seek.