I should have written down a question that I wanted to open this essay with. I remember in a class, not this class, that one of my teachers asked us what kind of story we wanted to tell. I think it was my children’s literature class. I’m not comparing my children’s lit class to this class, but indirectly they are very similar. Probably my favorite essay of this class was my memoir, because it helped me reconnect with a part of my past that I had locked away in my memory. In my children literature class, one of the assignments was to write your own short story. Even though the story was fictional, it helped me open up a door of emotions that most people forget as they grow up. My memoir was a continuation of this experience. The subjects were not the same. My children literature story was about a 6-year-old girl who has her best friend move away (Also part of my past, if you’re interested) and of course my memoir was about the dysfunctional organization that my family was when I was 10 and 11. In a way, they both represent a void that was present in me for much of my adolescence, and in part, will always exist. The lack of secure emotions open into a large freewrite and journal entries that would make a child psychologists head spin. Anyway, I’m getting off topic, if I even have a topic at this point.
For my childrens literature class, one of our final projects was to identify a meaningful learning experience that we had achieved in that class. I’m not too proud to say I did not have a strong focus or experience to write about. In a way, when you asked us what is the most important thing you learned about writing in this course is I learned very little about writing at all. One of the few things I did learn about my writing this semester, is that there is no proper way to teach someone to write. Everyone has their own style, their own experiences, and their own free will. Writing is about expression and not conforming to standards. It’s about self realization, regardless of genre. Every piece of creative non fiction has something to do with self realization, and personal involvement.
For the sake of this essay, I should go back to the beginning of writing my memoir. Back before I had a topic and back before I had a focus. Seems like it was an eternity ago now. I remember thinking that I didn’t really know what to expect from this class. I knew we had essays, and I knew the definition of creative non fiction. The one question I couldn’t answer was what I wanted to reveal about my life, and my past in this essay. I remember you telling us the difference between a personal essay and a memoir was that in a memoir, you had to step away and look at your topic from another glance. I decided that I would write about my childhood right then and there. I didn’t expect anyone to see the connection between my dysfunctional family and the web of closure that I didn’t want anyone else to see. In the beginning, I don’t even think I realized the connection between the two subjects. For quite a while, it felt like I was writing about someone else’s life rather than my own.
Prior to writing this essay, my childhood was a book that almost always stayed closed. Even when I was a teenager, I would clam up to everyone who ever talked or asked me about my childhood. Even my family, who had been there and not been there during the years when my life had changed chose to ignore the past and keep the book closed. That was the reassurance I needed.
Amazingly, after years of locking up my childhood and all the memories that I chose to forget, I opened the book myself by choice.
One of the first memories which I can honestly say triggered all the rest of the memories was one night, years after this situation with my sister and I. We were having a fight over something stupid. I think she was complaining about wanting to go online and I was online (we were still using dialup at this point.) After a few angry words and possibly some threats too, I said I HATE YOU. Needless to say, she shut her mouth fast. Then you asked the question which would redefine our lives forever. “Why can’t we be close like “Normal” sisters? Why do you hate me?” That was the strongest opening point of my essay. That’s where I think my story begins. Only by the end of the story could I really answer that question to her. We Were Different.
I’m not sure how, but I remember laying in room with that question being asked over and over again. I started remembering. For a few moments, I was not 15 or however old I was at the time of the fight, but I was ten-years-old again. Laying in my bed, next to my window where I had been looking out for years. Laying there, I was ten-years-old and the alone in the house.
Reading through my essay again, I found my line I’ll remember all of this. I’ll remember all of these memories.”
It’s a bit ironic that one of the stronger points of my essay was telling myself that I would never forget this. For years, I had forgotten about it. For years, it wasn’t a part of my life. It did bring me back to where I needed to be. During the time frame of when I wrote the last segment to now, I was lost in a daze. The only imagery I could see and feel in my mind was laying there alone. I didn’t know how to wake up from it. I don’t remember how I woke up from it last time. I don’t completely understand how I coped, how I moved on, and how I created a new life with no past. This is getting a bit too off topic.
The next thing I remembered (in my original draft) was being a freshman in high school. Somehow, I had erased the last four years of my life between laying in my bed and high school. The first day of school, and seeing the teachers reactions when they saw my last name. I remember hearing about all the stories about my sister. My first day of high school can be compared to the first day in this class. That has a long writing process. I didn’t know or understand what I wanted people to know about me. Was I just the little sister to the legend, or was I my own person?
