Also, Moppet Moussaka, Stir-Fried Small Fry, or Toddler Tetrazzini

Remember when you were a kid and you were sure the boogeyman was about to burst from your closet to carry you off to some crazy monster’s potluck, where the entrée du jour was Small Child Stroganoff? And you were so scared that you pulled the covers up over your head and held your breath, in the hope that the fanged, hairy, wild-eyed boogeyman wouldn’t notice you and you’d avoid an untimely, and likely painful, death?

That’s what I’ve been doing with the memoir.

In my case, the boogeyman was what might be the most painful event of my life, and you know, fine, we all have painful events in our pasts, but in my case, it’s central to the book I’m trying to write. And not only was I not sure I’d be capable of writing the event well, I didn’t want to write it at all because it meant I’d have to relive said painful event, and in my case, even revisit the email that sealed it. Because I have the email taped into a journal, and I knew that looking at those words in Courier font would surely bring up a flood of emotions I’d been content to keep locked up in my own personal boogeyman closet.

But then I thought, Get over it and look at the damn email. Because really, how bad could it be?

Turns out, pretty f*ing bad. I haven’t cried in a long time, but I cried then. For myself and my family, for how many years I’ve spent caring what one selfish, cold-hearted man thinks.

(Doesn’t this make you want to run right out and start your own memoir? Whee!)

Once the tears stopped, I retyped that email verbatim into my manuscript. Then I finished drafting that section, and told myself it was okay to not read it again until I was ready to revise. And even though I feel like a big baby because of all this – especially in light of what’s happened in Haiti, for example – it felt good to cry, and even better to know that the remaining chapters won’t be as hard.

Which I’m starting today. The boogeyman is banished for now.