Will You Share Your Story?

Jewel has a song, Hands, that says she’s never broken—that we are never broken. I think the opposite is true. I think we’re all broken, have been at some time or will be in the future. I think all, or most of us, have had or will have shit lives at some point. And at some point, some of us wonder if we’re really going to make it. But so many just don’t talk about it.

I understand the difficult things we go through can be really personal. It took me months to finally write and share about my attempted suicide in 2021. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret that people I interact with all the time know that life got so bad—that I was so broken—that I tried to take my own life. Because I’ve been willing to be vulnerable, honest and not share just the pretty parts of life, I’ve been able to help others. I’ve made a difference. I don’t say this out of egotism, but because many people have told me. That absolutely makes any embarrassment or shame I could have felt worth it.

Sometimes, when we do really bad things or make really huge mistakes, we need to feel really guilty. We need to feel really ashamed, and we need to feel really horrible about ourselves. That can be what leads us to true remorse and change. But I wonder if we feel it more than we need to because we think we’re the only one, or one of the very few, who have done such a horrible thing. Sometimes we feel more depressed and alone because we think we’re the only one who has gone through something so horrific. I wonder if we were more willing to be vulnerable and share those nasty, horrible, depressed, anxious, etc. shit-life experiences we’ve had how much better we could help others through it. I wonder how much more support, understanding, love, acceptance and help we could get if we all just opened up more. Because the world needs more of that. We all need, and could benefit so much, more from it.

If you have a story, consider sharing it with others. You have to be comfortable with it, of course. Just remember—we all can make a difference.

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Remember (Part 3): The Explanation

I still vividly remember the night I wrote Remember, sitting on the floor in my bedroom, papers strewn around me, furiously scribbling on the page. It was one of those out-of-body experiences where I looked down at my hand and thought, “Wow, look at my hand writing.” It was as if I were looking at someone else. Remember wrote itself. I didn’t even think about it as my hand penciled in the words. It was kind of surreal.

When I finished and looked at it I had the most distinct thought that it was a story about me in the future. That didn’t make sense, though. If I knew it was going to be me in the future I could take steps to make sure it didn’t happen to me. Right? And yet, the thought remained. This was a story about me, a story that had written itself.

I suppose it came from a family vacation almost a year and a half earlier. On our way to Reno, Nevada we passed by this exit sign for Painted Rock. I didn’t know if it was a town or a ranch or just a trail, but the area along I-80 next to the Truckee River was beautiful and inspiring. We spent time at Lake Tahoe, the Redwoods and the Oregon Coast over the next week. It was a return to nature after a difficult year as a sophomore in high school. Less than six months before this trip I had been diagnosed with depression. My greatest solace in those dark days came from writing poetry, listening to music and being in nature. It felt so liberating and inspirational as my mind filled with stories. I swore I would one day go back and explore the area, as I wanted it to be the setting of some future novel. It was hard coming home, going back to normal life after this vacation.

Time went by, and sometimes I would think about this story and poem I wrote. I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t let the woman in the story become me. I would keep exploring, keep feeding my soul with nature, keep writing.

More time went by, I had a baby, and I was thrown into the pit of postpartum depression. I was lost. The real Tacy became lost. For years it felt like someone else was inhabiting my body. Everything changed, and I stopped writing. Life was so hard, and I forgot about Remember.

Then, one day a woman in my church randomly asked me if I liked to write. It took me a second to answer I was so caught off guard. I finally managed to tell her that I did like to write, that I didn’t do it much anymore, but wished I had the inspiration again. She told me about a writers group she was in and invited me to come to their next meeting. Curious, I went. I didn’t take anything with me to read, but I left that meeting, went home and started writing. Just going to a single meeting inspired me to start writing again.

Not long after, I was going through a notebook I had created of all my poetry and short stories from high school and when I was first at college. And I saw Remember. Truly, I had forgotten. And I suddenly saw how I had, indeed, become the woman in the story—not to an absolute T, but close enough. It hadn’t been ten years, less than that, and it wasn’t work, but mental illness that had stolen my memories, my dreams, the yearnings of my heart. Knowing that the story had come to pass, just like I had originally thought, hit me to my core. It was . . . unbelievable. And, yet, it had happened. But I was still stuck in this certain way of thinking and living. I started feeling more like myself three years after my daughter was born, but then my marriage was falling apart. We got help, things seemed like they were going to work out, then right as they started going downhill again I got pregnant again. The pregnancy was miserable, I got postpartum again, life was up and down until my marriage hit the point of no return and last year I got divorced and became a single mom.

Throughout the years I have continued to write—sporadically. I have had moments here and there to enjoy the beauty and inspiration of nature. This last year has definitely had some very low times, but I feel stronger than I ever have before. I have a plan—goals, even—and I see a path I can take that will give me the freedom to take the reigns of my life and get what I want out of it. I will no longer be the woman who gets lost or who forgets. I will be the woman who knows where she’s going, who always remembers.

On a side note: My six-year-old son is really into favorites. He loves asking what your favorite—whatever is! He asks me what my favorite color is, my favorite food, favorite number, favorite thing to do. And he often asks me what my favorite word is. “Perspective,” I always tell him. Perspective is my favorite word. “What’s your second favorite word?” he’ll ask. He does this with everything, often getting to my sixth or seventh favorite of whatever it is. I have always loved the word perspective because I believe life is all about perspective. But my second favorite word is remember. It is a powerful word, though it’s dependent on how you choose to respond to it—like everything in life. One of the things that keeps me going in life is the fact that I can remember the good things that have happened. I can remember and be grateful. Remembering can propel me forward through the slumps. That’s why I love it. Remember.

Remember (Part 2)

It is so incredibly hard posting this story. First, because the editor in me writhes in pain and screams out changes that should be made as I look at it! It’s really hard letting people see it without doing MAJOR edits on it first. But this is how I wrote it when I was seventeen – almost twenty years ago, and I’m going to keep it this way for now.

It’s also hard because it is such a personal piece for me. It means opening up a part of me for anyone and everyone to see. I’m handing you my soul, my life, and I don’t know if anyone will even care or not. But I’m all about taking risks, making leaps and bounds, these days. So, here is Remember.

 

The click of her heels hitting the cement echoed through the deserted street. She quickened her already fast pace as if hoping to beat out the coldness that had more closely crept up in an unintentional race. A slight breeze suddenly arose, joining the race and adding a new challenge, which she attempted to thwart by pulling her coat closer around her and letting the time between when her heels hit the ground decrease.

For a quick second she let her eyes look up at the looming mountains in the near distance. The autumn colors were quickly taking over, and the scene made her breath catch for a moment and a moment alone. She thought the mountains looked beautiful, but apparently the coldness didn’t think so. She could feel the competition closing in on her, and just before she cast her eyes back down she caught sight of a golden maple leaf slowly and somehow pleasantly making its way to the hard frostbitten grass. She wondered how the leaf could have so much time to fall so slowly, gently and happily to the cold, hard and uncaring ground. The woman shrugged and continued down the still empty street.

“You’ve got to be crazy to walk in this cold weather,” so many people had told her.

“Maybe,” she always replied. “But it’s my only chance to be out in the open, to enjoy Mother Nature.”

She didn’t bother to look up as she crossed the last street before her block. There usually weren’t even any cars out in this sort of bitter coldness, and if so, she knew she would have heard the growl of their angry engines trying to defy the weather.

Three more houses, she thought, as she skipped over the gutter and onto the new sidewalk. Two more house. She passes one more as she once again quickened her steps and lengthened her stride. One more house . . . and . . . home! came the final triumphant thought as she shoved a key into the door knob, jiggled it around, turned the knob, shoved the door open and stumbled into the surprisingly warm house.

“How did it get this warm in here?” she asked the house, plopping down into the nearest chair and closing her eyes.

“Well, you didn’t expect me to wait in the cold just because you walked home in it, did you?” came a deep an unfamiliar voice.

Her eyes popped open to see an unfamiliar man standing a few feet away from her with a steaming cup in his hand.

“Wh—who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” she asked as she realized with great surprise that she wasn’t afraid.

The man pondered while sipping a quick drink of his unknown liquid. “I am—a sage of sorts, I suppose you could say,” he finally answered.

“A sage?” the woman asked with disbelief. “Am I dreaming?”

“Only if you choose to let it be,” the man responded quickly this time. “But it can also be as real as you choose it to be. You decide how real it is. The power of the mind is much greater than most people realize.”

“A sage,” she muttered, not sure what to believe. “All right, fine. You’re a sage, but what about my other question—what are you doing here?”

“The real questions should be what are you you doing here?”

“Me? This is my house.”

“But isn’t that your nature?” He pointed a finger to the window, a window that held a stunning autumn scene out of its glass frame.

“Well . . . yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” she questioned as she let the mass of confusion she was feeling play on her face.

“It has everything to do with everything,” the words slowly came out. “Or don’t you remember?” He finally let his hand fall back to his side, but his sparkling eyes continued to point to the glass window.

The woman left the question rhetorical as she thought it had been intended. She didn’t know whether she was dreaming or not, but no matter. For some reason she wanted to listen to this—sage. Straightening herself in the hard chair, she once again realized how warm it was and began taking off her coat and gloves. She had forgotten about them with the intrusion of this stranger.

The man must have heard her movement and turned to face her. He gave her a slight smile and said, “You’re crazy to walk in that coldness.”

“Maybe,” came her repetitious replay. “But it’s my only chance to be out in the open, to enjoy Mother Nature.”

“Enjoy Mother Nature? I wouldn’t exactly call a cracked sidewalk and a tar-lined road Mother Nature.”

Slowly she asked, “What do you mean?” although she was already beginning to understand him. But he put the picture—her own picture—before her anyway.

“You’re getting ready to leave work; your co-workers tell you how crazy you are as you slip your coat on. You give them the same response you just gave me, pulling your coat tighter around you and yanking up the collar to keep your neck warm. Then you say goodbye, head out the door and cast your eyes down to the cement to keep the cold from biting them out. Yes, I do admit, occasionally you glance up at the mountains whose melancholy mood you think describes you, or by chance notice a leaf taking its time sinking to the ground. But usually you don’t even look up for cars.” He paused for a moment, and only a moment, then went on. “When are you going to be like that leaf you saw today?”

“I don’t have time,” she began her futile protest.

“Time? Have you even forgotten what time is? Didn’t you once write a poem about that?”

This time he meant for an answer, but she couldn’t give him one.

“Don’t you remember ten years ago when you wanted more than anything to get out and explore—really explore? That was when you knew the true meaning of time, the true meaning of nature.”

“And don’t you remember ten years ago when the crystal ball that held that desire was shattered by reality and the fact that I was only a little insignificant teenager?” she shot back.

“But you’re not a teenager anymore,” he rebuked. “And those pieces weren’t broken so small that you can’t glue them back together now. Remember those days you ached so desperately for those things in that crystal ball, and your fingers desperately itched for a million pencils and pieces of paper to write it all down. Don’t you remember? There’s a painted rock still out there waiting for you. Remember.”

A painted rock. The words did spur a remembrance. But it was Painted Rock—not a painted rock, but Painted Rock, Nevada. Yes, she remembered, and suddenly it all came rushing back. Suddenly, all the stories, the dreams, the fantasies came back, hitting her like an unexpected tidal wave in the middle of a calmed morning ocean.

“Remember,” he again prodded.

“I do,” came her faint reply as a glistening tear escaped her eye and trickled down her cheek—something that hadn’t happened for quite awhile.

“Then go to it,” he tempted. “Go find those memories your Irish friend sings about—the ones you left behind.”

“But how—”

“It doesn’t matter how, just as long as you do it.”

The idea was almost too appealing. How she had ached to find those memories, to return and reclaim her thoughts. How her fingers had itched for those pencils and papers, but she had never gotten the chance, and it had torn her and wrenched at her until the final piece from that crystal ball had fallen, and she had . . . forgotten.

“But if what you say is true, and I have forgotten—”

“Ah, but the thing with the word forgotten,” she was interrupted again, “is that it has an opposite, a word that can change it all around and make things turn out right; remember.”

Remember. She looked out the window just in time to see a golden maple leaf slowly falling at the same moment another tear slid down her cheek.

Remember. She took her un-gloved hand and brushed away the tear, then quickly shoved it into the glove. The other hand followed. Pulling her coat on and yanking the collar up around her neck, she stood up.

“Where are you going?” the sage asked as she walked past him to the front door.

“For a walk,” she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

“You’re crazy,” he told her with a grin.

“I know. But I need to be out in the open, enjoy Mother Nature. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll even see if I can find some way of getting myself—” She paused, turning around to find that the stranger was no longer there. “To Painted Rock,” she finished with upturned lips. “Maybe I’ll see about finding those memories, and this time I won’t forget.”

Remember. She stepped outside and breathed in the crisp night air. She let her eyes glance upward into the sky whose daylight and confusion had finally retreated behind the gates of the western mountains. The moon, full and smiling, cast its pale glow down upon her, and she returned the smile at the memory. The click of her heels hitting the cement echoed through the deserted street, and she slowed her already leisure pace, just like a leaf slowly and pleasantly falling to the ground. Remember.