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When you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you have healed.

~Author unknown

I saw this simple photo posted on Facebook the other day with this quote and it almost pulled tears from my eyes. It resonated so deeply with me.

As many of you know, or don’t know, I have just recently finished writing my memoir. It is not published yet and is still in it’s 10th editing process “exaggeration, not exaggeration” but it is finished. It is My Story. There were many days while words spilled from my finger tips, tears spilled from my eyes while I wrote it.

I would get up and have to walk away from it to stop the pain from leaking from my heart. My throat would knot and my chest would tighten as I would relive so many painful memories while telling my story.

I would sob… deep belly cries when I remembered where I have been. I cried because I mourned for the past me who was still carrying the cross of my past experiences. I cried for my losses, for my past sorrows. I cried for the younger me I wish I could have cradled in my arms and whispered in her ear that she would someday be alright.

I cried because I still saw my past self, as me. My failures, as me.

Every time I told my story I was reliving it. Until one day I began to see that person was no longer me. That past me, isn’t me anymore. I don’t have those pains, I don’t think those sad thoughts, I am no longer in despair. Those memories may be mine, but those feelings are no longer here, I don’t have to hold on to that pain.

The more I wrote about it, the more I edited it and reread it… the more I told myself that story, the more and more I became free.

I handed that story over to my boyfriend one day like I was handing him some secret vault to my past. I guarded it with my life and it took me a long time till I was ready for him to read it. I told him that he may read some things in there he may not like and he may judge me when he is done but I hoped that he would know that it was just my story.

We all have a story.

The greatest thing we can learn in this life is that our stories do not define us. They refine us. 

They make us our greatest selves.

We are not who we were yesterday… how could we possibly be who we were 10 years ago. Every day is a new day in our aging bodies to start out new, by shedding our stories of yesterday. Just as the butterfly lets go of his story about being a caterpillar. You too can let go of the story of the past you, spread your wings and see what the world has waiting for you.

It’s been waiting for you, to show up.

I recently gave my story to my good friend to edit for me. I noticed this time as I handed it over I felt less attached to the words that were about to be read. I felt less nervous about what remarks or chicken scratch may be on the pages when it is returned to me.

I felt less worry about what she may think of me.

You see it is just a story, it’s not me, but quite possibly by sharing it I can reach out to the present me in someone else, who is struggling like the younger me in myself and I can help whisper in her ear today that she will be alright someday.

I can’t wait to tell you my story. About the younger me who was not brave enough to share her secrets with the world. Who kept her words traps in journals at her bedside. Who was afraid of the world of judgment and never thought she was good enough. Who once thought life would be better six feet deep…

That is not me… that was just my story and I can’t wait to see what the world has waiting for me.

Write back soon, love Annie.