Being a Writer in a Family of “Normals”: A Holiday Special
The holidays have a beautiful uneasiness of bringing families back together.
Though you are now 46, a writer, and living your life, you may still be seen as the lazy entitled twelve-year-old who never helped with chores or perhaps, when they look at you, they see what you’ve become and well, aren’t 100% comfortable with it. Mostly because it doesn’t fit their idea of “what is normal.” They are regular folks just trying to live their lives and you and your poems about death are freaking them out.
Wait, it’s not just you this time of year…
Here are a few things that my family (and some friends) have said to me over the years:
“Why do your poems have to be dark? Why can’t you just write a poem about flowers and happy stuff?”
“I don’t understand why you have to leave your family for a week to write?
Followed by: “It’s so great that your husband lets you leave just to write.”
“I don’t think you should write about that.”
“Billy just dropped grease and started an oven fire. You should write a poem about that!”
“What does ____________ (fill in the blank) think about that poem?!”
“Some of your poems are very sad. Are you sad?”
“All you asked for were books. Why does one person need so many books?”
“It’s nice your husband is so understanding about your writing.”
“You know what you should do? You should write a bestselling novel!”
Other things writers and friends of mine have heard —
“You were always kind of the odd duck/black sheep/weirdo in the family.”
“Why do you have to dress/look like that?”
“Shouldn’t you be home more with the kids? Why do you have to do all that writing/poetry/memoir stuff?”
“Maybe you should find a real job. One with a secure paycheck.”
“You mean you spent all that time just writing one poem?!”
“Did you ever meet Maya Angelou?”
“I think it’s weird you like being alone so much. Normal people like spending time with their families.”
It can get tiring. It can feel as if you’re always being judged. Or that you’re not accepted. Or that they want you to be someone else (or you think they want you to be someone else). Or maybe they want you to be who you were when you were five — Remember how you used to love wearing dresses to kindergarten? You should wear more dresses.
Sometimes you fit in. They notice you have a name-brand purse. Or compliment your hairstyle. You talk about easy subjects — funny memories of holidays past, the kids growing up, everyone’s iPhone, Adele. You hope the subject doesn’t move to “what’s your next book about,” your art, especially any new projects or that you’re writing a new book about poets who committed suicide. You hope the subject doesn’t move into your plans for the year, how you‘re leaving for two weeks to write in a cabin in the woods, or that you want to downsize your life to live in a smaller house so you have more time to write.
Sometimes it may seem your family always has an opinion about what’s appropriate and how what you’re doing is just a little off.
The family doesn’t want you walking so close to the dark side — Come over here, sister. Let’s listen to some Michael Bublé.
The family would feel a little more comfortable if you could better participate in their conversation about “The Bachelor” or “Dancing with the Stars” (however, they’re quite impressed how much you know about Bindi Irwin’s father).
The family is concerned about what you’re doing with your time and all those weird images in your poems about moths and clouds in the shape of gravestones, have you been feeling okay, dear?
They worry that you’re a bit strange and you write about such strange things (and in first person!)
They read everything you write as some sort of truth about you. There are no such things as “persona poems” in their minds.
They love you, but oh how they worry about you.
They love you, but maybe they want you to be more like them.
The truth is, families are families and they like similarities.
If you’re “normal” in a family of artists (say, have a full-time corporate job and/or wear khakis), you can be judged and criticized for that just as much. Families of artists are concerned about their non-artist kids too, maybe that they’ve bought into corporate culture or have become “too shallow.”
But as a writer in the world, you may feel there are more normal types in families than artistic types. This is just our culture. Go to school. Go to college. Get a good job. Get married. Have kids. Live your life as others do. Die.
Anything that sways out of the normal path can make people uncomfortable. But remember, they are not uncomfortable with you, they are uncomfortable with themselves. Their comments have nothing to do with you or what you’re doing — as a good friend once told me, “It’s not your business what other people think of you.”
Sometimes you can see how proud they are of you. They have never heard of the New England Review, but can tell it’s a big deal that you were published in it.
They love that you publish books. They can tell their friends that their son/daughter/aunt/uncle is a writer! A published author!
They love that weird sense of famousness you bring to the family.
But sometimes they say things that make you feel a little self-conscious, like not only are you the black sheep, but you’re the black sheep wearing a beret and writing poetry while the herd plays the bongos.
Many times their thoughts, feelings, and actions reflect a time in their life when they were happier. When things were more under their control, when you were more under their control.
Sometimes they judge who they are by what you do or what you look like.
Sometimes as big or small or medium of a as a success you are in the writing world, that still does not equal the doctor/lawyer/_________fill-in-the-blank they wished you became.
Because they want to believe their decisions are right in their life, your opposing decisions seem wrong. Sometimes they don’t realize there is more than one way to live a life.
We can love our families without changing our own passions.
We can exist with our families without feeling as if we aren’t enough or that we’ve disappointed someone. . .again.
We can walk into our families understanding that we’re not the only ones who are broken, everyone’s broken, we may just happen to write about our brokenness a little more, or maybe sometimes we hold hands with it, or aren’t afraid of it, or don’t push it into our name-brand purse, or maybe sometimes we do.
Sometimes we take out our brokenness and we put it on the bookshelf. That’s okay.
Holidays and family can also remind us of who we were and not who we are.
And that can be uncomfortable too. Maybe we never liked who we were — that trendy girl who liked the mall and went along with the crowd, or we were that shy boy who never spoke up. Or maybe we were just trying to fit in and that really wasn’t who we were either.
Mostly, when I feel a little uneasy about the writing stuff at holidays, I focus on the good things. For my family, they are hilarious and they laugh a lot. They love me and they will always be there for me. They are tough, strong, and full of mama bears; they would take down the world for me if needed.
Maybe they don’t always understand me or my poetry. But that’s okay, I don’t always understand myself either.
There will always be more joy around us if we look to find it.
Sometimes we will go an entire holiday without someone bringing up my poetry in that awkward way that makes me feel as if I’ve chosen a career path similar to making small hats out of felt for birds (I call those holidays a Christmas Miracle!).
So for all of us writers, I hope we each find a little love and connection during your holiday season, whenever and wherever that is for you.
And I hope you find compassion for the people around you, even for the most ridiculous comments or moments. And that you realize (besides that everything that happens is material for your next book!) that you are being the person you are and they are being the person they are, and sometimes that means you’re wandering off to Bora Bora to live in yurt while they are traveling off to a sale at Target. And that’s okay. Different goals, different directions.
I hope you know there are other people like you out in the world and we are struggling with similar things you are struggling with.
But mostly, I hope you keep finding the sweet moments around you and that you keep writing into 2016 while loving those who love you back.
Cheers to a new year!
~ Kells
_____________________________
Connect with Kelli Russell Agodon and Two Sylvias Press here:
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Originally published at ofkells.blogspot.com on December 26, 2013.
