Ego

 I have been hoarding one of the greatest compilations of generational chain-breaking tales to exist in history, thus far. It has everything one seeks in a great saga. A tale in which no villain is without a soul. Where dark nights are conquered by darker days. The characters precariously clinging to hope. And victory! Sweet victory, over and over again.

I have been praying for the clarity of heart and mind to write my personal history, my auto-biography. I have been meditating, asking my elders for advice, asking my peers. Asking my soul.

The answer seems to remain elusive. Some days, I want to write it all down and come what may. Some days, I want to burn all twenty-something of my journals and forget I ever even existed. (Past, what past? Isn’t that, like Budda or something?)

Both answers feel wrong. I know I possess a great story; is it all mine to tell? I don’t think so. I cannot be transparent and truthful, without pulling back the curtains on the past lives’ others. It is not even full chapters I would be shining light on. People would develop snapshot opinions of people I still love. Based off of a couple moments in time that were deeply impactful to me. Isn’t this selfish? Do I ask for the permission to share inconsequential moments of their time?

While revisiting these events, I find strength, perseverance, unending heaps of hope. Reminders that I am seen and cared for. However, I am well aware that where I may see inspiration and triumph, another will surely find my re-callings, slanderous and vengeful, even evil.

Evil, I am not. I may still be vengeful. What do I get out of my story? A little Devil’s advocate, if you will.

Money.

Maybe it would feel good, to show how far I have come. Maybe I want the villains of my story to see that I was the seed that thrived despite the hellish conditions it was planted in. Problem is, there are no (maybe two) villains in my story. Just humans whose souls each have their own sagas rippling through them. Their fates just happened to run into mine, often in painful, chaotic ways.

As a woman of 44, who has recently found serenity, it is not my wish to bring turmoil to any other. Revisiting my journals, to take notes on a book that I will probably never write to conclusion, has been therapeutic. Perhaps I should be grateful. Perhaps the stories, the years of lessons and achievements, the life’s moments I celebrated, my own pitfalls and shortcomings, perhaps those lessons were only meant for me.

I thought that sharing my problem would make me feel better. It in fact did not. I’m either egoistic for deeming my story good enough to be out there among the greats. Or I’m a coward for not truthfully telling my beautifully embarrassing/ embarrassingly beautiful little story? Should grace be given and who should it be given to?

Will grace be given?