A Girl Named Eve

In the middle of school, soccer games, church, family parties... life, my sister and I still made the time to regroup with the women we met at the Memoir Writing Workshop a month ago. Although I liked them immediately and we said we'd meet again to start our own writing group, I wasn't sure if we would actually ever see them again because it wasn't the first time we had said we'd form a writing group, and then lose all communication with the group. And, this one was the furthest away. So when we got the email about the upcoming meet up, we were ecstatic and knew we had to go. My sister and I once again set out on a 45+ minute commute to pursue our writing passions. Although I had seen my sister at a family party the week before, when we see each other to drive to a writing workshop it's very different. We catch up on what we are reading or writing, we talk about what our latest hopes and plans are. We'll...

I went to a memoir-writing workshop recently. I don't want to be the girl who cries at the slightest thing but, in this case, I was. They asked the question: who told you, you can't write? We had to state our writing demons, and then  write out the dialog between this inner critique and our retaliation to their remarks.  Ultimately, it is only ourselves that can hold us back from our own dreams. But sometimes we've internalized the voices of others tell us that we can't.  I'd done this exercise before privately, in my own bed, in my own room, and in my own journal but never out loud. When we were done, we had to go around the table and read the dialog. I was picked the first to go. Before I could even let out a word, my throat choked up, my face turn red, and my eyes began to water. I read and cried. We all cried. I thought I had left all that hurt hidden away on paper somewhere, and there it was strangling me. I can't begin to describe that whole situation wi...