Redacted Has Been Launched!
Read the first anonymous divorce essay, with so many more to come.
It’s Wednesday, and I’m several days behind on my column, mostly because I’ve been traveling and will continue to for the next few weeks, and I have no idea what day it is or what time it is or what I’m supposed to be doing. But despite the chaos, big things are happening!
With trepidation and pride, I published the first Redacted column on Monday! I’m going to be honest—I don’t have anything else in me at the moment, dear readers, so I’m going to leave you an excerpt and direct you over there to read the essay. If you want to follow this project, you can subscribe to Redacted, and if you’re interested in submitting your own anonymous piece, you can do so right here.
Submissions close at the end of July, and I’ve been slowly making my way through these brave, gorgeous, powerful pieces of writing—some as short as a single sentence, some micro-essays, and some full-length pieces. I’ll be mixing up the styles and lengths and I’ll share as many stories as I possibly can. I’ve been so moved by the response to this project, and by the need for support and solidarity from divorced women.
One of my favorite comments I’ve received about Redacted is this:
“This is revolutionary work disguised as an anthology.”
That meant the world to me, because that is exactly what I want from this column and the anthology. But to be clear—this revolutionary work does not belong to me. It is by and for the countless women who haven’t been able to safely share their experiences and are now turning their pain into art. And it’s such an honor to be part of it. Because of all the travel this month, my Reclamation Era missives may be scattered until I’m settled again, but here are some upcoming offerings and ways to connect with me or work together, followed by an excerpt from Bury the Dead.
Let’s Connect
Want to write, brainstorm, or get unstuck with me in a 1:1 session? You can book a private coaching session here, including my newest offering, Intuitive Creativity Sessions: Where Woo Meets Writing, with brainstorming, a Tarot spread, freewriting, and goal-setting.
Join a drop-in virtual writing circle this summer—for writers of ALL levels, no experience necessary. Writing Womanhood is a supportive online circle for catharsis, creative expression, and connection. Learn more here.
Have you gone through or are you beginning a divorce? Wherever you are in the process, Writing Divorce is a 4-week online writing workshop to process, create, connect, and make meaning. All levels of writers welcome—this is a great opportunity to craft an essay submission for Redacted or just journal through the complicated feelings that arise from divorce. Space is limited in our July session—sign up here.
Are you a CO local? Catch me doing stand-up comedy TWICE on Sunday, June 29th. I’m hosting the boozy brunch Boulder Comedy Festival show at the Louisville Underground at 2 pm, and I’m My Therapist’s Favorite is coming back for a Denver show at the historic Bug Theatre at 7 pm!
Join MidCircle for the summer and write in community with other midlife women writers of all levels!
Here is an excerpt from the first full-length Redacted essay, Bury the Dead—you can read the full piece here.
Did my soon-to-be ex-husband know that his family—the one he repeatedly claimed I had “quit on”—was going down? That we were in a plane crash and he was the pilot? He hadn’t been a parent to our children since the day I asked him to leave. And suddenly the rage made me blind, and I couldn’t breathe. My chest was tight. My throat was crammed full of legal paperwork and therapist appointments and the 14-page file my daughter had created to document the horrors she witnessed, and I was choking on it. So I hyperventilated alone in the backyard and then dragged myself upstairs to call my lifeline: the brother who could see everything clearly.
“I had a life, and it’s gone,” I told him matter-of-factly. It wasn’t a life that I mourned per se, but it existed once, and now it didn’t. Poof, like that. Overnight. It changed in one night—one blurry, smoky, eerily calm, out of body, should we call the police kind of night.
“And some days,” I told him, “when I hit pause on the entire operation and zoom out, the magnitude of how fucked up everything is brings me to my knees. It’s like, one day I was living this way, and the next it was a whole new life. And I’m not allowed to talk about what really happened. Where is everybody? Nobody is helping me. What am I supposed to do?”
“You need to bury your dead,” my brother said. “This is why you all keep getting so sick. You haven’t been able to grieve this.”
We have been too busy surviving for nine months to grieve. I couldn’t see the day-to-day of it all, the way we can’t tell our children are growing until we look back. We took it one day at a time, recovery style, trying to rationalize that everything was normal enough until we arrived at a random day in the future when the March sun shone and the backyard was trashed and I realized we had been too busy surviving to have had a proper funeral.
The divorce rulebook-followers would probably be terribly concerned about my children and how openly we discuss the divorce and their father. “Should you be talking about this around the girls? What will they think?”
“They know,” I will reply. “They lived it.”
It was impossible for me to maintain the impeccable divorce boundaries the parenting classes championed. I wanted to. I agree that they are necessary and useful and healthy. But not for us. Because this divorce is not normal.
You can read the full essay here.
Thank you as always for your support of my writing and for being such an important part of the community I am trying to build. I am grateful.
XO,
Steph
