Last night I listened to “In My Veins” by Andrew Belle on repeat for a while. Though this is an incredibly sad song, it got me in the right mood to write…or really just read through what I’ve written so far on my book. Though I’ve been neglecting working on my book for the reason of being in midterms week, I don’t think that’s the full reason. I’ve written down lots of ideas (in terms of certain memories) that I want to include in my book that I haven’t yet. However, I’ve come to realize that these memories are some of the really hard ones. Ones that either brought me incredible amounts of pain or just stick out because I remember every detail when I’d rather not.
Though I understand that a huge part of my book is facing all of these memories again in order to find some “closure” of sorts, it’s not easy. It takes insane amounts of courage on my part. And even though people have told me all my life how courageous I am, I never really know how to respond to that. I mean, I faced what I did because I had to. In my mind, it was the only choice. Sink or swim. So, I don’t exactly view it as courageous, but more along the lines of necessary. Writing about these difficult memories not only brings them out of the box that I’ve kept hidden for so long, it brings out who I really am…which is defined by what I’ve been through and how I’ve overcome it all to get to where I am today.
In a way, this book feels like another “sink or swim” moment. I’ll either be able to flesh out all these memories and get them written down, or I won’t. Though I don’t want to even give myself the option of failure, I’m just taking things one day at a time. Though my hope is to get my book published one day, if I don’t it’s not the end of the world. Even though I want my book to impact others, I think the biggest impact I’m looking for is the changes that I’ll see within myself. I’m writing this book for me and no one else, so if I end up understanding myself better but not being able to get my book published, then that’s okay. If anything, I will have proved to myself that even though my childhood was rough, I needed to face it all in order to get to where I am today.