That’s great, and to the extent that I’ve gradually embraced that anonymity - I mean boldness and independence - over the past couple of years, I think maybe I’ve also grown to the point where I need less anonymity. I'm not merely saying that my need for anonymity has lessened, but that my need to not be as anonymous has grown. Now, because of new thresholds I’ve crossed over in my writing, and because of one significant outside event, I’m feeling like I have to step out from behind the curtain a bit more. I have to embrace what I have to say and how I say it. Not my persona or my pseudonym, but me, personally.
I’ve been hiding, not so much to protect myself, but to protect everyone in my past with whom I’ve had a difficult, unhealthy, codependent, passive-aggressive relationship. That is to say, maybe everyone in my past with whom I’ve had a significant relationship. Parents, siblings, friends, ex-wife, probably even children. I’ve always made a special effort not to upset other people’s apple carts, and at times, I’ve been way too protective of those apple carts on their behalf. Maybe, for a child who never really belonged anyplace, it was a way for me to buy belonging and connection, by helping others protect their secrets.
It’s a bit of a jumble and a muddle – “… a riddle wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce” as I think Jimmy James says on NewsRadio. Maybe the most significant and clearest indicator that this has all been unhealthy is that simple fact. It’s a jumble and a muddle. That’s how we protect unhealthy things, and/or seem to protect ourselves from them. We keep things muddied and vague. “Well … I’d explain, but it’s complicated.” How is it that something that looks for all the world like a problem isn’t really? Well … y’know … it’s complicated. You had to be there. There are special circumstances.”
By “it’s complicated” what I suppose I’ve really meant was that I was still grappling with the lie.
So, to the first thing, I’ve been writing for years and always struggling with making it real. I cast things in the past, or in strange places I’ve never been, and wonder why it’s so difficult. I cast them in familiar places with more familiar characters, and the reality flows into the story better. Still, up until recently, those instances have been islands – a short story here or there wherein the characters allude to other characters they might have been.
Now, however, I’ve forced myself – literally – to take up a story in the first person, present tense. While it's not absolutely "I" in the story, it's an "I" that I have to take more immediate ownership of. It feels like he has to be more authentic right now in the moment, and not eventually, following additional edits. Also, the story itself is set in a familiar place with familiar issues, and with very familiar people as characters. Under those conditions, the words aren't backed up, but flowing out like a spring flood.
I’ve gone from zero to fourteen thousand words in just over a week, and I like it. It’s all very close to first draft right now, but it all makes sense. It feels right, and more importantly, I feel right. I’ve been mildly depressed for decades and very depressed for the past two years, and I’ve come to understand that it’s because I’m continuing to fail to do what I need to do – write, and write well and authentically. I’ve always drawn back, knowing that if I write I will wound and offend my family and people in my past, but I’m finally coming to act like I accept that reality, not just talk like I recognize it. I can accept that people will be off-put or outright offended, that they might say “I never knew he was like that” or “I hope that character isn’t based on me.” All my life I’ve dreaded drawing personal attention to myself, and now I’m accepting the fact that, that’s exactly what a writer does, for better and worse. I can allow people to see me as something other than the smart guy or the funny guy or the helpful guy. I can offer them complexities to ponder and not just vagaries. “It’s complex” isn’t the same as “Well … it’s complicated …”
When I write, and write authentically, I feel great. It’s the best anti-depressant available to me, I think. It’s me finally feeling that I can offer something real to other people, which is something I really haven’t felt in a very long time.
So, better, more authentic writing begets more writing and better, more authentic writing.
Something else that has been a watershed to me, that on the surface seems entirely unconnected, is this: my ex-wife and I divorced about six years ago. Both Catholics at the time, we got a civil divorce, with some thought that down the line we would also pursue an annulment in the church.
Over the years, my perspective on the church and its annulment processes has changed from skepticism to a certain respect, but that discussion is for another time. The relevant bit here is that my ex, let’s call her Alice, told me some months back that she’d started wheels turning on the annulment process. I’ve since remarried and become Episcopalian, I didn’t change denominations so as to marry without impediment. I changed because of years of underlying issues with the Church, but that’s yet another issue for another discussion. My ex is still Catholic and might actually be considering remarrying within the Catholic Church at some point. Or maybe she’s just ready to finish up something that, for her, is a loose end.
The magical thing about all of this is that, a week and a half ago, I got a letter from the Marriage Tribunal for our diocese, with a questionnaire and several forms, indicating that the process was beginning. I was asked first of all if I wanted to participate, be represented by an advocate, present witnesses, etc. I have no real desire to present witnesses or testify directly. This is not an issue where any involved parties have governance over me. They can proceed with their hearings and examinations, and it has no impact on my daily life or my spiritual life. I do not feel a need to be dispense from anything from which I have already been dispensed.
I did, however, want to respond to the questionnaire and lay out exactly what I saw as her background, my background, how those factors shaped our married life, significant highs and lows of our relationship, and those events and issues that brought about the end of our marriage. I really had no faith that she would or could be candid about any of that, and I wanted the reality to be on record.
I spent a few hours filling in that information and when I was at the end, I had the story of a twenty-six year old relationship that was, honestly, doomed from the beginning. My response to the questions weren’t spiteful or in any way mean-spirited. I was as blunt about my own shortcomings as I was about hers and as candid about my pre-history and family of origin as I was about hers.
This really was the first time I’d set the whole picture out in writing, in any permanent form, and it provided a certain relief. It felt good to have told the whole truth, or as much of it as they wanted to hear. It was liberating. It was also infuriating because it enumerated all of those reasons we failed as a couple, many of which I had to lay at her feet, though I had to accept responsibility for being too passive and simply accepting the status quo and waiting for “the right time” to try to make a change. Mostly, though, it was refreshing and liberating.
It required me to say things that I’d been needing to put plainly and it showed me how good it feels to lay such things out. It also set a benchmark for transparency. Now that I’ve talked about this secret, could I really go back to hiding everything behind a pseudonym?
It is a singular thing, but it’s also part of a bigger issue that has its own momentum. It’s no longer my job to help people hide their inadequacies and their secrets – it never was, to be honest. It’s also not my job to hide my quirks and inadequacies. Secrets are another thing. They’re mine and they’re personal. You have yours. Yes, yes you do. I have mine. I’m responsible for mine; you’re responsible for yours, and that’s how it should be.
My family was always way too guarded about our story, and protecting it from others. My ex was always way too guarded about our story, and protecting it from others. But that’s no longer my concern. I don’t have to be silent just to keep people from conjecturing about what my previous life was like. So people figure out my father was a bully who was terribly insecure, who was afraid of all men, and who saved his bullying for women who he thought he could intimidate and control more easily. So people figure out that my ex was a control freak who was utterly dominated and emotionally manipulated by her unstable mother, and who thought that, when she married, she could become queen of the castle in her own way, exercising her need for absolute control, free (for the most part) of her mother. And the stories I can tell about myself … well, if you think those people look flawed, just wait. It’s alright to be flawed. It’s very human to be flawed and even more human (and hopeful) to admit it.
So, what this all builds toward is a desire for some real transparency in my blogging and tweeting. I want to do that, but at the same time, I still have professional constraints. My employer does not want every opinion and musing that I might have to be expressed and potentially tied back to their institution. Even if they said they did – and even if they thought they did – trust me, they don’t. There are also certain reasonable personal constraints. I’m not a Kardashian, for God’s sake. I don’t want to make my living by dumping all of my foolishness in the village commons.
So my persona/personal dividing line is starting to shift. I want to put more of me into the authentic, public me, but I know I have to keep some of that back in the pseudonymous me.
It seems like a question I'm coming very late too - where and how do writers draw their own reasonable boundaries?
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