I Don't Want To Write Part 5

I’m really, really, really angry. Because I don’t like this ending.

I’ve now written and posted Parts 1-4 of my story. Two months ago, sharing my story for thousands of strangers on the internet to read was the furthest thing from my mind. I had every intention of keeping my articles safe, and in my comfort zone. I was going to do my very best to dance around what happened.

But then I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt: I needed to share my story. I needed to prove to myself that I still had a voice.

I sat down at my laptop, and the words seemed to pour out of me. One sentence after the next, a dam had been broken. Going back and re-living the last 18 years of my life was both incredibly painful and exhilaratingly cathartic.

But now, I’ve run out of Parts to hit Publish on.

And I don’t want to write Part 5.

It’s not the ending that I begged and cried and screamed and pleaded and prayed for. It’s not a happy ending where justice is served and I live in complete and total peace with my boys, knowing that we are safe until the day we die. I don’t have a happy ending.

I’m still in the horrible, ugly, messy middle. I still wake up every single morning and I have to fight for joy. I have to choose to move my body, to stop scrolling, to get outside and take in the beauty all around me. Even though I don’t understand. Even though I hate the direction things are going in with every fiber of my being.

And there’s so much of my story that I can’t share. There are parts that are not mine to tell. There are parts that if I wrote there would be legal repercussions. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to keep me and my boys safe.

But I am so god damn sick of having to be silent. Of dancing around the details. Of sitting down in front of my laptop and feeling like there is a muzzle over my mouth. Like I’m sitting at a table with a thousand puzzle pieces in front of me, trying to sort them out, but no matter how hard I try, the puzzle is never complete.

I used to fantasize about the day that I could write a book, with everything. The whole entire story, from start to finish. With the ending that I prayed for. I imagined what kind of an intoxicating and emotional release it would be.

I can’t believe that happened.

I am so sorry for what you went through.

I’m so happy you got the justice you deserved.

They were wrong.

But instead, I sit here, staring at a blank page, knowing that I can’t share my whole story, for so many god damn reasons.

I want to tear every single wall down. I want to escape this prison of gaslighting, the iron bars of “Sorry, we’re just not sure.”

I’m reclaiming my voice. Taking back my story. Sharing the truth that I have lived.

I’m fighting for financial security, freedom, and independence. I’m going through each day with that constant buzzing in the back of my head, the pesky insect I can never swat away completely, whispering in my ear,

What is your one-year plan? What is your five-year plan? How can you create a life that you love when you are not free to make decisions about your future or the future of your boys by yourself, trapped in the prison of the system?

Writing has been my passion, my outlet, my safe space, for as long as I can remember. When I have that feeling inside where I will literally explode, I know that relief is waiting for me on the other side of the release.

Sharing my story on here has simultaneously been the most exhilarating and terrifying experience. I am humbled and blown away by the support, the kindness, and the empathy from complete strangers who now feel like best friends. I am both heartbroken that so many people have resonated with the most painful parts of my story, while also touched beyond words that something I have written has made someone feel seen.

I dream of a day where I can make a living off of my writing. Where I have enough money saved in my Stripe account to take my boys on a vacation, something we haven’t been able to do in years. I lay awake at night fantasizing about making a payment to my attorney, one that finally has enough zeros at the end to bring my running balance of 5+ years to $0.

But now that I’m actually here, now that I’m actually being given that opportunity through this incredible platform, I am literally terrified. I feel split right down the middle, and I am agonizing over each side. Writing is time, and time is money. I know that writing my story is emotionally exhausting, and I have had to be incredibly proactive and mindful to ensure that I am navigating this experience in a way that is emotionally healthy and will not result in burnout.

In theory, I know that millions of authors have written a memoir and sold them for money. Of course I know that. But then I am paralyzed with fear that putting parts of my story behind a paywall is manipulative, or that I am exploiting the most intimate and painful parts of my life for money. I am terrified that readers will be angry, that I have been stringing them along.

As I write this out, I feel silly and dramatic. I have never, not even once, experienced those emotions when coming across a single author that I have read. It’s like the paywall button is taunting me, bringing up all of my worst fears, and underneath it all, that question that has not left my head since the day I hit publish on my first article...

“You have nothing worth saying that people will pay money for.”

I see other publications on Substack that fearlessly promote their paid subscriptions and make a living from their writing, and I sit there and I stare at their words and I am jealous. I am jealous because they are so sure. They know their work has value. They aren’t afraid to ask people to pay for it. And I want that so badly.

I feel like a beggar standing at the end of a street, holding a cup, hoping someone might believe that what I have to offer is worth something.

But maybe the hardest part for me isn’t actually the paywall.

Maybe it’s believing, for myself, that my voice has value, even when my story is unfinished.

Even when I don’t like the ending.

Even when I can’t write,

“And she lived happily ever after.”

Because for seventeen years, I was taught that my feelings were not valid. That my voice was not trustworthy. I lived in the shadows, a spectator to my own life.

And maybe this is another way of asking the same question I’ve been circling for five years now…

Am I allowed to believe myself?

If you’ve been reading my story, thank you.

Thank you for believing me.

Thank you for helping me believe in my own voice.

Leave a comment

Share