Giving Up My Personal Herstory

I haven’t talked about this because I didn’t really want to but it’s time I did. It kind of hurts, but maybe that’s the point: surrender and move forward.

Shastas and Chlorine

About a year ago, I chose to reconnect with my family of origin along with my old, abandoned faith. I longed for familiarity, a taste of nostalgia that could become more than a memory.

I wanted the soggy ham sandwich and lemon-lime Shasta in the cafeteria of the Natick Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. To run around the front lobby with my friends while catching a whiff of the chlorine in the baptismal pool. Hear the symphony of rustling rice paper spring to life in timeworn bibles.

Well, I went and that’s not what I found. There were no sandwiches or Shastas. The pool didn’t smell of chlorine and no one flips through their bibles when there’s an app for that. Chasing nostalgia is pure folly; hanging on to the past and a history that has expired is just time wasted.

The Word “Want”

While playing tag with those memories, I inadvertently tore open a wound that I’ve been working to heal for 30 years. I thought I could make it work—lie to myself, get my family back—but I’ve always known who I am; sometimes I just forget when life shoves me into a corner.

Then I remembered that people in your life are either leaves, branches, or roots. Folks usually assume family will be your roots but that’s not always true. And it’s okay. What’s not okay is hanging on to a leaf hoping it’ll become a root. It’s dangerous.

Once I knew I couldn’t rekindle anything, with God or family, I was honest about it and told them. Unfortunately, the conversations didn’t go well and I went from Prodigal Daughter/Sister to Black Sheep. And, you know, that’s also okay…

Because a fellow writer on Substack posted that they didn’t realize until later in life that they don’t fit in because they don’t want to. But it’s not born of defiance or rebellion but instead of truly knowing oneself. And it was a smack to the forehead. And I totally get it. And maybe I have my entire life…it just never occurred to me to incorporate the word want.

The House That Held Me

My bedroom was in the top window on the far right, and years later the bottom row of windows were in my basement apartment after boomeranging home at 26.

I learned my parents (who I’d last seen in October) moved out of my childhood home and listed it for sale in January without my knowing. It stung, I ain’t gonna lie. Seeing pictures of the house online, empty and void of life, was a shock to my system—palms sweaty, heart racing, panic taking hold.

We built that house when I was two. My parents lived there for 47 years. I thought they’d die there. I thought my brothers and I would spend days cleaning it out together, reliving old lives, sharing relics of the past. Alas…

I was oddly okay after a rage walk around my current neighborhood while thinking, Okay. So, Zillow has informed me that Mom and Dad are gone; I’ve no idea where they’re living, if they’re okay; I’ve heard nothing from them and I didn’t get to say goodbye to the house or them.

After sitting with it for a few days, I can honestly say I wish them well. I hope they’re happier. I hope they’re okay. I hope they got a good deal on the sale and it’s enough for them to live comfortably for the time they have left.

I closed the book on my old life the day I drove by and saw pretty laced curtains in the kitchen window, a basketball hoop in the driveway, and an Easter egg wreath on the front door. I hope the new family celebrates many holidays inside that house. I hope they have better memories there than I did.

This is what’s called giving up your personal history—throwing away old traumas, tossing out self-defeating beliefs and behaviors, wishing them well, then reinventing yourself. It’s exciting to think I get to start a whole new book. Not just the ones I’m writing but the ones I’m living.