Out Loud

I shift in my conference room chair, taking mini sips from my steel cup to interrupt my body’s warning signals.

I have to get out of here.

Mere minutes before I’m supposed to go on stage and pitch my memoir to a panel of agents, in front of an audience of my peers at this writing retreat, the grief reaches my throat.

Fuck. Not now. Not here.

I scurry out of the ballroom and into the bathroom to collect myself. I’m not going to lie—it’s 50/50 on whether I’ll bolt.

Just inside the door, a fellow writer, Alva, takes in my contorted face and tear-streaked cheeks. “Did you just pitch?” she asks with concern.

“No, but it’s almost my turn. I don’t know if I can do it.”

Alva suits up for the job she’s too kind to turn away from. “What is your pitch about?” she asks, trying to distract me from my emotion.

“My mom,” I sputter. “Do we like your mom, or do we not like her?” she asks earnestly.

If I weren’t so deep in my anxious thoughts, I would laugh. Such a knowing writer’s question.

“I love her, but this isn’t going to help me right now.” My hands start taking turns like windshield wipers to clear the tears from my face.

Just then, Michelle and Melissa exit the bathroom stalls and take in the scene. They are trying to leave to catch their flight home, but can’t help but try to center me, given their generous, healing natures.

Melissa, our meditation instructor, goes first. “I’m trained in trauma,” she assures me. “Breathe with me. Tap your chest with alternating hands, like this.” She models the technique. My panic persists.

Michelle, our yoga teacher, is up next. God bless her—she is undeterred by my track record with these other two helpers. “Place your thumbs in your ears and cover your eyes with your fingers,” she suggests. “Breathe like this,” she models. I am still unable to regulate.

The last stall door opens. This time it’s Leslie, one of our instructors on craft. She’s the tell it like it is one. While I wish my emotions responded to tender eyes and softness—the snap-out-of-it approach always works best with me. Thank god Leslie can turn off the valve before I flood the whole lobby.

She tells me the truth about the day. “The stakes are not that high with this. No one will walk out of here with a book deal. This is just a conversation to see if they will read a few pages of your work. That’s it.”

I catch my breath. I dry my eyes. I re-enter the ballroom patched up enough to make my case. I start like a champ. Like I am there on business.

“My project is titled (Un)packing, with the “un” in parentheses,” I say with confidence. “It’s about the experience of packing up my childhood home and unpacking all the experiences there that formed me.”

But when I get to the part where I describe the inciting incident, well, I can finally diagnose my issue. Writing this memoir over the past three and a half years has been a solitary pursuit between my heart and me. Telling my story out loud, in front of an audience of women I’ve only known for four days, doubles the vulnerability in me. Even though there could be no warmer room imaginable. Nevertheless, by vocalizing my story beyond my inner circle, with words that I’ve mostly only experienced on the page, I open wounds that I thought were already scars.

I choke this part out, but barely.

 “The collection starts with a crisis. My beloved mom, my biggest fan in this world, is in her fifth year of Alzheimer’s. She thinks my dad is an intruder and gashes his cheek with a fistful of costume jewelry. The ensuing scuffle takes them to the front porch, and they both eventually fall into the flowerbed while my mom screams, ‘he’s trying to kill me!’ The neighbors come running, the police get called. Then, we have to do the unthinkable. We must dishonor her wishes to stay in her home and move her into memory care instead.”

Once these words are out, I am okay … ish. I complete the pitch. I exit stage right. My shoulders drop. I am exhausted. All because of me, myself, and I. Then, I chuckle. I remember what Leslie taught us the day before—that all stories should be character driven, and all protagonists need opposition. Turns out, I am a character, and I manufacture plenty of my own opposition.

When I call my husband on the way home, I ask him the question that’s become rhetorical between us: “Why do I do this to myself?” I could have taken this as a restorative four days of connection and learning. But no, I needed to opt into the opportunity to publicly pitch to agents while I was there, which put a lid of stress over what was otherwise a bubbling pot of pure delight.

I laugh. I know the answer.

This is your great adventure, Shana. You are not the type to bungee jump off cliffs or leap from planes or, hell, even go camping where there might be bears. You are here to speak your truth and feel it all. Even when it humbles you. Even when you might come across a skosh histrionic. This is your life. This is your story. Tell it.