The Greater Mistake

Part II

Here is the thing about writing the truth: you can’t.

You can tell your version of the truth. But also, hopefully, you respect the privacy of the other people you’re writing about. So, by default, you’re leaving things out of the truth. And how much time has passed since the story you’re telling happened? Maybe 24 hours, so you’re still right in it. Maybe 5 years, and you’ve grown up just a bit. Which of those stories is the truth?

My teacher Cecilie used to say, “Imagine sitting around a giant vase of flowers. Someone asks you to describe what you see. Then they ask someone sitting on the other side of the vase to describe what they see. Same vase, completely different experience.” Which would be really good for us all to remember in today’s political climate, but that’s for another post.

Last week, I felt like I was telling the truth.

I wrote that post, and gave it to the poet to read before publishing it, out of respect for his privacy, and because I’d promised not to write about actually meeting his parents.

He’s had nice things to say abut my writing so far, which is pleasing for my ego. So I handed him the laptop in the back of the car as we drove along to his parents’ and patiently awaited another glowing review. But when he handed it back to me, he looked crestfallen.

My heart sank. I asked him to explain. He asked me to give him some time. We spent the rest of the journey in silence, him staring out the window, me obsessing.

Later that evening, we took Django for a walk in the park nearby. As kids played around us and the Black Sea swished in and out off in the distance, we talked.

Well, I talked.

black sand, Black Sea

I defended myself, without really knowing what the issue was. I said,

“Sometimes I have to tell stories in 2D!”

And,

“I have to simplify things!”

As anyone who speaks a second or third language knows, when things get heated, our vocabulary fails us. I conveniently forget this at the wrong moments. There was a lot of back and forth, with me getting more defensive. Finally, the poet said,

“I wanted you and my parents to meet because you are all wonderful people and you deserve to know each other.”

Yes, I wanted to say, and it hadn’t felt like such a big deal at first, and that’s where I was writing from. That I had felt insecure, and was being offhand to deflect that.

I wanted to be strong and loud and say this was my version of the truth and that was different from his and that was his problem.

He said, “I’m never going to try to tell you what to write or not write, or what to publish or not publish.”

Then he said, “The only other girlfriend I’ve ever introduced to my parents was my girlfriend of 5 years. She met them for two hours.”

I shut up.

I published the post the next day, as you know. And during the last week, I thought about how much I use humour and sarcasm to cover up my vulnerability. How I’ve written about people knowing they’ll never read my words, and have not been very charitable in some instances. [See: approximately 1000 posts about my ex-mother-in-law.] How I just assume that everyone will love being a character in my work, without much consideration for what being simplified might feel like for them. How often I’ve gone back and read things I’ve written and wished I had waited to hit “publish” until I had more perspective… more wisdom… more compassion.

How afraid I am to write about how I really feel about this relationship, because of how much I shame myself for having “failed” at previous ones.

I try to be as open as I can in these posts, but it’s not the whole story. It never is. No, you can’t write the whole truth. But you can try your best.

street dogs in Izmit, Turkiye