The Power Of Memoirs

 I Have Something To Tell You: A Response

By Dreaming Ace

I am a poet, but sometimes the words don’t come

And then I read them all neatly laid out on a page

Contexts I did not know about myself made clear

Experiences and emotions gently, gently explained

Reframing the narratives that flow through my head

About myself, About my place here, About my story

A retelling of my inner stories, My points of view old as time

Learning + remembering the hard bits are hard for all

Learning + remembering my own connections, my people 

Learning + remembering my own histories, my own heart

I stand grateful for powerful and vulnerable memoirs

Sometimes even a poet needs the words of others

Chasten's memoir came out Sept 1st and in case you can't tell I absolutely loved it :) It is very conversational in tone and I laughed out loud many a time.

• Dating is WTF no matter who you are
• Everyone has experienced hard things that need to be named so others know they are not alone, and can hold out "for the good."
• Many of us have worried about where we were on the trajectory of our lives or felt we were not good enough
• For any of us who have worked in the service industries, customers are customers no matter where you are.

As I said in a letter I mailed Chasten today (C/O Win The Era PAC so all bets are off if anyone will actually see it LOL)

Reading your story really provided me context about my own childhood ... all reasons in hindsight I never felt part of my community. Your story helped me by naming some of the reasons I never felt that I fit in growing up. I had never really thought about how my identity as asexual (which I did not have words for as I was growing up) impacted how I related to those around me (I was always getting lost in books because people were too much work to figure out) and how not fitting in expressed itself as me not trusting others and not trusting myself.

Your book has given me a lot to think about in terms of my past experiences and how those experiences still impact me today.

I really found Chasten's book to provide me the context I missed growing up and is helping me place myself and my upbringing within that context. It is interesting to be able to reframe those experiences. It was also a lot of fun to see how many experiences Chasten and I had in common growing up. (And I think come NaNoWriMo I shall be trying my hand at my own memoir, to continue to explore my personal context, just for fun) 

Chasten's book is filled with warmth and humor and humanity and hard moments too. Chasten wrote an amazing memoir and you should give it a shot if you have a chance.