The perils of being personal

A friend I admire very deeply and think is v cool was recently talking about the conflicting feelings of putting personal stories out there for the world to know. She writes about herself, her life, her heart, her people, her schemes, her fears, her love, her loss…an open diary journaling the most significant happenings in her life. Read her work and it wouldn’t take long for you to be familiar with the people in her life, knowing deatils ranging from how they like their coffee to which parent they had a difficult relationship with.

While we debated the many pros and cons of this occupational hazard of being a writer — the former were surprisingly more present. I cannot imagine any writer who did not start out their journeys as young kids journaling the going on’s of their lives with an almost brash abandon. The ability to wear your heart on your sleeve and finding such a wonderful medium (see what I did there?) to express it can’t be anything but brave, we concluded.

Or so I thought, until today as I sit here trying to write about fallen fathers. Being personal about it would mean having to admit to myself that my father is a failed hero. Failed, but still a hero.

My 22-year-old cousin today shared with me that her relationship with her father, whom she once regarded her best friend, is souring; while he is still trying desperately to win back his place of honor in her heart. She described how their hugs that were once likened to bears, is now a resignation she bears with — unhumorously. She is slipping away as the president of his fan club, leaving her seat empty as she ventures out into the world — not entirely realising the impact and influence this would have on her every waking moment. Every decision she makes right from picking the right job, the right partner, or the right bundle of spinach will be influenced by this now un-erasable mark. With time it would fade or evolve making the scar look like a crocheted bouquet of flowers, or a bird taking flight — but it would always be there.

All through the conversation I am suppressing bright flashes of memory of the first time my hero slipped off his pedestal and how arduous it was to make the climb back, together. This was followed by an unnerving urge to defend my father and our relationship. To tell her that he was the better father among the brothers, and the better uncle as well.

I also want to tell her that perhaps they can make it better and find their way back, like my father and I did but I found that I didn’t want to verbalize it. Either the admittance of his crime or the faint glimmer of hope. After over 10 years of his falling from my grace, and I still cannot look a family member in the face and admit his failing. As for hope, how do I reassure her when I have no guarantee that she and her father would be able to make the treacherous journey back to each other? It’s an effort that never stops, taking more out of you than you could have possibly prepared for.

So I offered her words that I made as warm and wise-sounding as possible and told her I was proud of her. I punctuated every second sentence with the reminder that she could always come to me, at any time, but I couldn’t finish it with a — “I know how you’re feeling, we’re in the same boat, just different departure dates. Hopefully the destination will be similar, or better.”

I have cried about my father to my father. My mother. To some friends. To all romantic partners. I have attempted to joke about him, allowing a few select people the license to create dark humor through our bandaged relationship.
I seem to have no qualms about using fragments and smatterings of it in fiction writing. But to be autobiographical about it seems harder than I imagined. And I’m still wondering how necessary the process is, for me to live. As a writer, as a human in desperate and constant search for pockets of exhalation.

Fiction or not, fallen or not, achan is going to watch something I created, or read something I wrote, and know the parts which come from him. That’s a whole other peril of being so personal as a creator. When all your heart is out there for everyone to prod at and dissect — its not just you that has to deal with the consequences.

But it does make being authentic easier. It makes creating art more medicinal.

So what will my choice be? I think this entry, if I ever dare publish it, will be a beginning — a still mysterious one but a beginning nonetheless, into willingly placing my insides on a table where lie a neat array of weapons on display.