After reading my last post entitled, Your Sovereignty is in Your Story, you told me you’d like to write about recent events of your life but that you don’t know how to do it in a way that’s “healthy.”

You told me that what’s stuck in your craw are the voices telling you that by expressing your pain and sorrow you’re somehow not “‘over it’ like the onus is on [you] to be over the abuse.”

You say you want to use your voice to help others who are feeling helpless and powerless but you don’t know how…

These are fascinating complexities, Jane.

And I know you’re not alone in your searching, which is why I’ve decided to respond in an open letter.

You pose a great question: How do we share our vulnerabilities and give value to others?

Yours is such a powerful question, and one that will resonate with so many of my readers, I’ve come up with a list of about 25 answers writing this post. The first three follow immediately. You can find the rest—so as not to interrupt the flow of this letter (though they’re modeled here too)—in the postscript.

#1. The willingness to clumsily move forward into the unknown, make mistakes while you stumble, and revise from there, is everything. For many writers it’s what makes the difference between whether or not that book, blog post, letter or speech ever gets delivered.

#2. People who are new to writing often don’t know that some of the best writing comes from not knowing how to or what it is before you start. There isn’t always a neat little outline or pithy title to follow and fill out.

#3.“It’s never really about the oranges.” It’s what my Italian boyfriend said to me the night we talked about my parent’s marriage, the effect it had on me, the reasons why I would NEVER marry him.

He was 27. I was 19. It was March, and I was leaving Florence in May. We were talking about how to be together, or break apart, I don’t know. It was a confusing time.

For his own good, the night we’d met I’d told him–not once but three times–to go away. But his persistence, the bravado of his apology for all the Italian men that had ever hurt me, tipped the scales in his favor.

Had either of us been interested in being honest, we might have learned everything we’d ever need to know about our relationship in that first five minutes, deemed it a failure, and retreated to the safety of our friends who were watching us from either side of the bar.

We flirted instead.

That night, and months into the relationship that ensued, he vehemently denied that part of my charm was the possibility I’d take him home. Despite his agreeing to living in the moment, to giving up the idea of coming to New York, he hoped I didn’t really mean what I’d said, that I’d go back on what I’d promised him, change my mind, and marry him anyway.

He was trying to understand how someone so young could be so sure she didn’t want to get married. I offered up one of my parents recurring arguments–the one time in particular they almost came to blows over it– whether or not the ceiling fan blades rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Enraged, my father picked up the large bowl of pot roast, carrots, and potatoes my mom had just brought to the table covered in brown gravy and hurled it against the wall. The bowl broke out from beneath the roast, the gravy-laden roast stuck to the wall before sliding down. Ever. So. Slowly.

Engrossed by the slow decent of that roast, I stared in disbelief while my parents continued the fight.

“Clockwise!”

“No, counter-clockwise!”

Sitting between them, the child me would have paid all the money I’d won playing gin-rummy with my grandmother, and then some, to know why either of them cared at all which way those fan blades rotated.

“It’s never really about the oranges,” my Italian boyfriend said.

His wise words–the surety with which he’d spoken them—the proverbial oranges, all rang true and they’ve stuck with me too.

Over the years, they’ve given me great clarity amidst the confusion of superficial arguments, dismaying disappointments, and the kind of life altering leavings I’ve wished were easier to “let go.”

Admitting irreconcilable differences doesn’t make disengaging from relationships any easier but it can lead us to the truth of who we are, who we were, and where we’re really going. Coming to terms with, not judging, and forgiving ourselves for all the times before “the last straw” when we didn’t stand for the fact that we deserved so much more.

This is the real work of every writer.

It’s never really about the oranges.

But before I go on, let me be clear. There is no world in which I want to make excuses for deplorable behavior. Or tell you to be grateful for what you’ve suffered. The onus for abusive behavior is on the abuser but here’s the kicker, Jane: You can’t make him take responsibility for it if he won’t.

Believe me, I know this sucks, Jane. I know it really, really, sucks.

But you want to know what’s worse?

Refusing to accept what is… that choice, while very seductive, is always ultimately more painful. Accept what is…again and again if you have to and leave him to do his work, or not, while you do yours.

Because you know what’s a fascinating study, Jane? The how’s and why’s of how we land ourselves in the more colorful relationships we find ourselves in, the ones that have us shaking our heads for years afterward.

Those are excellent causes for writing.

How did I—for example—get into a years long relationship with a professor and mentor thirty years my senior when I was just an undergrad?

Hindsight has made it very easy to see—more clearly—his attraction to me, how easy it was for all my friends to say he’d abused his power and authority, how poorly he ultimately loved me but I tell you back in the day I couldn’t have loved someone more.

Besides the childish abandon with which I’d loved him, I was blind to some of my darker motivations or the ways in which—despite my already strong feminist leanings–I had some very formative, very subconscious faulty scaffolding about women’s worth and what was possible for me to achieve in the world on my own.

Oh, and Jane, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I believed he loved me too. And I wanted to believe it more than I wanted to, or was capable of, standing in my own power. And so I believed it until I didn’t. Until I knew better and was consequently able to do better.

When all of these seemingly disparate—seemingly contradictory–parts, if only for a moment, also get to be true…that too is a writer’s real work to do.

By now, some twenty something years later, the professor’s failings aren’t nearly as interesting or useful to me as my own. Whenever I forget, I try to remind myself that it was only through the relationship, the larger than life experience of grief I felt when it ended, that I was able to move on from it.

It’s almost always our own rapid growth that leeches the stickiness from whatever the undeniably powerful glue that once brought and kept us together.

I don’t know about you, Jane, but I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered to be true. If I’ve failed myself once, and I don’t figure out how in the world that happened, I’ll fail myself again.

And Jane, I know you’re with me here, I’ve reached the point in my life where the stakes are too high. I’ve invested too much, and come too far to fail where I could fly.

That isn’t to say that I’ll never fail again, Jane. On my journey to higher heights of success, I’ll fail but I want it to be at something new. Not that I fall for some slightly modified version of that same old pattern that, by now, I could have been able to spot from a mile away and immediately implemented a course correct…If only I’d been willing to face the whole truth about myself, my conscious and unconscious biases, the places they live together in conflict, decide which side I’m on, and fight like my life depends on it, because it does.

Spotting these patterns and tensions, figuring out what I’ve been previously willing to trade for my own sanity and realizing—once I’ve got it down on paper—it’s time for me to go because whoever, or whatever, it is usually isn’t worth it but I am. I’m worth it.

You’re worth it too, Jane. You’re worth every word so I suggest you start writing. Start vomiting up a rough draft because sometimes we really do have to get sicker to feel better and be better.

The writing improves and gets “healthier” from there.

In the end, the walking away is the easy part. It’s what and who we’re left with that’s hard because to make it better, to make it feel right, we’ve got to bring a lot of really unpleasant truths about ourselves into the light where we can look at them, reach a new level of acceptance, dole out apologies where they’re due, and live in better harmony with our best selves and the people we’ve deemed worthy of our love for the long haul.

That’s a lifetime’s worth of work to go through Jane, please try to be patient with your self.

Grief is not something you get over so much as go through. Until then, I recommend the fullest possible surrender, Jane, because I suspect it has a powerful message for you and it’s this: You deserve to be loved beyond measure and when you really believe it in your bones, only then will you be “over it” and move beyond.

Meanwhile, you shine bright through it all, Jane. Watching you move shamelessly, and talk openly, about your experiences has been an inspiration of the highest order. Thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable and strong.

I hope we see each other again before too long.

Love,

Clementina

P.S. Here’s the rest of the list of healthy writing rules. Enjoy!

#4. Be honest.

#5. Mean what you say.

#6. Deliver on the promise of the writing.

#7. Use details that put people in the room with you.

#8. Use visuals people can “see.”

#9. Dialogue.

#10. Provide contrast and clarity.

#11. Take your readers on a truth quest.

#12. Don’t make excuses.

#13. Don’t tell your readers how to feel. Instead, show them how you feel.

#14. Do show readers you know how they feel.

#15. Suggest a place for readers to start.

#16. Provide personal examples even if you’re afraid some people will abandon you upon reading. Some will.

#17. Take responsibility for your part in the drama.

#18. Stand in your power.

#19. Tell your whole truth. Leave others to tell theirs.

#20. Admit your own failings.

#21. Write some beautiful sentences you hope readers will want to repeat.

#22. Become a pattern sleuth. Use them to create a through line.

#23. Face the truth about yourself, and your writing, and practice radical self-acceptance.

#24. Drop truth-bombs liberally.

#25. Stop doubting yourself.