Not the Whole Story

Last week I took a 1-day memoir writing intensive course through the Gotham Writing Workshop, and it was the best. bday. gift. ever. (thanks, EM!) I walked into the workshop hoping for some help with an essay I've been working on about My Big Heartbreak. I was looking for advice to follow and tools to use to give my piece cohesiveness and a reflective conclusion. I imagined running out of the class at the end of the day, promptly opening my laptop, and filling in all the holes of my story with all the perfect missing pieces. I walked in with the story of My Big Heartbreak and nothing else, but as we talked about writing, and I heard other stories, and we worked on writing prompts, I realized that I didn't want to talk about that story anymore. I realized I wanted to write about the first time I ate an artichoke, when my grandpa let me drive his truck. I wanted to write about my dad and when I first learned that being a writer was a real job. I wanted to write about all of those things, but I didn't want to write about My Big Heartbreak. I realized that I have so many stories to write. That loss is a part of my story, but it's not the whole story. That perspective was the best lesson I learned all day, and it didn't really have anything to do with writing.