It was recently brought to my attention, though I already
knew, that the heart of everything I write lives in the examination of
relationships. The pulse of my stories thrives in the investigation of love
from all kinds of relationships, and through the exploration of different types
of people. I understand my need to write these stories, so was caught off guard
when someone questioned me.
“Why?” they said. Not to say that I was rewriting the same
story over and over again, this person assured me, but “why the fixation on
high school relationships?”
Fixation?
That word is not my favorite, so it made me a little angry
to hear it. Fixation is so accusing, and connected with connotations of
addiction. So, I grumbled about it for a while, and the more I grumbled, the
more I really thought about what I was being asked. Eventually, I discovered my
answer—which I must admit was harder and more eye-opening than I thought it
would be.
Why do I write about relationships?
I have a wound. Actually, I have a few. Admitting that is
still hard. It sounds so pathetic. Those words make me think of sad high school
girls sobbing over being dumped. Possibly that is part of the wound, but not in
the made-for-TV way it sounds.
The truth? The truth is I keep writing about relationships
because I know that I need to keep exploring that wound. The truth is that I’ve
only picked lightly at the edges of the scab—that scab that never fully heals.
More importantly, I realize that the truth of the process is that I must keep
exploring that wound, keep pulling back that scab and searching for the
infection. Writing about that wound is my search, and I know that I will only
truly find the source of that infection when I find that I can write the
absolute truth of what happened.
My exploration of relationships, and my quest to heal, will
only be complete when I can finally face the moment where it all went wrong.
That moment when I realized that love wasn’t what I thought it was, and when I
turned from honest to foolish. When I
can write the story in which being a victim and being at fault intertwine, but
only make up a fraction of who my main character is, I will be on the right
path.
And this is only the first part.
Whenever I do finally find that courage, and scrape at my
wound until I’ve hunted down the source of where the infection hides, it is
then that my writing must turn into antibiotics. It is then that my writing of
relationships will transition. No, I will not stop writing about them, but the
stories will progress past the point of falling.
I will keep writing about relationships.
I will keep exploring
my wound and investigating the fascinating, mysterious, and often frightening
inner workings of how people react with one another, until I can face what
happened, admit that I was a part of it, understand what changed as a result of
it, and most importantly find what I lost so long ago-
the ability to fully, truly, and completely love myself.
