We’ve been editing essays for an upcoming issue of Segullah over the last couple weeks. I’ve also started archiving a more recent issue to make it available online. Last night, immersed in a little bit of both projects and overwhelmed with the lives people live and the stories they somehow manage to tell, I was struck with a thought.
I can write. I’m pretty good at it, really. I just don’t often know what to write about. Or feel motivated to spend time doing it. Or have the confidence to share what I’ve written if I ever do.
But if these women can write, so can I. Right?
So maybe, whether I’m ready for it or not, I should start working on some personal essays. I should write about my ongoing quest to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Or what it is like to be a tall girl in a short man’s world. Or how I’d like to reform sex education. (Hint: it involves sending kids to boys- or girls-only pre-puberty day camp. IT WOULD BE SO MUCH FUN. Also educational.) Or the time God put a giant spider in my bathroom to punish me for skipping church and going swimming instead. Or my efforts to help Mila develop a healthy relationship with food and her body by trying to help myself and the people around me do the same. Or that blueberry yogurt barf incident. Or Mila’s birth story, which I’ve been meaning to jot down since, oh, eight months ago, but somehow just haven’t ever done it.
I have plenty of stories to tell. So what if most of them aren’t particularly tragic or profound or politically important. They’re important to me, which means they might be important to someone else. And I have the talent it takes to tell them.
So I think I’m going to.
Hooray!