I defended my memoir, my thesis, earned my MFA, and promptly put my manuscript in the proverbial drawer where it has been sitting ever since. Lately, it keeps rummaging around in my brain like it is looking for something. Or perhaps I’m looking for something.
While the manuscript has been sitting in a drawer, the following things have happened:
- Pandemic
- Earthquake
- Inland hurricane
- Bought a house
- Adopted a dog
- 2 US presidential elections
- New job
- Laid off
- New job
- Sold a house
- Bought a house
- Moved half way across the country
In some ways that is a lot of change in a relatively small amount of time. In other ways, par for the course. But the person who started that MFA is not the same person who graduated, the person who graduate is not the same person who is writing this.
My manuscript, while rummaging around in my head, has made me wonder: what do I do with it?
In some sense, the me who wrote it no longer exists. The me who wrote it needed to write it to process seismic shifts that are starting to settle and pieces find their place in a new puzzle. That shift towards settling, pieces finding their place, challenge the manuscript. I find myself wanting to start over.
Not rewrite.
Start over.
While I have empathy, and sympathy, for the me who wrote the manuscript, the me in that manuscript, I’m struggling with rewriting, revising it. Even in pieces. To this day there are still sections that are difficult to read. With time, distance, and additional processing, the manuscript is a piece of contention. While part of me prefers to leave it in its drawer, part of me recognizes its importance, a testament to my resourcefulness, curiosity, and resilience.
While the manuscript has been sitting in a drawer, there has been a clear break in how my brain processes data and interacts with itself. At the moment, I don’t know what to do with that. At the moment, it seems like 2 different manuscripts. Two different stories. Reminds me of a part from the book Surviving Survival: The Art and Science of Resilience:
…not yet fully aware that she would have to reinvent what normal meant to her. She was going to have to come up with a new set of adaptations, because the person who went into the water behind the hotel was not the same person who came out.
Reinvent what normal means. New set of adaptations.
The person who went into the MFA program is not the same person who graduated. The person who wrote that manuscript is not the same person writing this.
I find myself wondering if I need to write the now, write the person who is writing this, and see what happens.