I have been attending meetings of my writers group regularly since January. I really enjoy being there. On the very first day I attended, I stood up and read one of my short works of fiction, and they said it was rare that people were willing to read on their first time out. I've read several things since then, and enjoyed the feedback I've gotten. Every time we have introduced ourselves, going around the room, we explain what sort of writing we do, and I have always said that I write a nightly blog. It occurred to me this week, that not once in all the months I've been going, have I read a single entry of my blog to this group. They had no idea what my personal narrative style was like. I've done fiction, poetry, even a sonnet, but I always held back the non-fiction side of my life. Tonight, I rectified that. I felt safe enough to really open up, and I read aloud the "What I Wanted" post from a week and a half ago. I wasn't sure I was going to survive it, because (as I told the group) that was the day I cut myself open and bled all over the page. My hands shook as hard as my voice as I read. But it was well-received and I got a lot of support afterwards. It felt like a confessional, and I felt absolved afterwards. It's a great relief to have pulled back the curtain with this group. It made it easier to explain why I've had trouble writing to the prompts for a couple months now, and not read much in weeks. If I'm lucky, it will have removed some of the blocks that have been in place, and allow the words to flow again.
I agreed to do a favor for my boss today, and let some of his local clients in to see a house they have under contract (so that he didn't have to drive all the way down here to let their parents see the new house while they were in town). I was happy to do it, and even more so when I discovered these were the sellers whose open house I was late in starting. I hadn't met them face to face before, and I finally had the chance to apologize for that unforgivable sin. It turns out it wasn't completely unforgivable. The wife promised me all was okay, and she said the person buying her townhouse wasn't even an attendee at the open house anyway. I'm still going to be available to do anything this couple needs, but I'm able to relax a little that I didn't cost them a sale on their place. The new house was beautiful and big, and in the fourth and final stage of a development where some of our closest friends lived for years (until a few months before we moved home). It was fun to see how the interiors evolved in these houses over the ten or fifteen years since our friends' home was built. The outside was totally recognizable as the same builder, but the insides were so fresh and modern. The yard was still just as small, though.
I feel myself changing daily. I left writers group with two of my friends from there, and spent hours at a coffee shop and then talking on the street after the shop closed. In just a week or two, I've come a long way, and I could tell by the way I comported myself in conversation. I'm a little calmer, with a harder shell than I've had for months. Not as quick to tears as I was for a very long time. I'm able to laugh and joke with friends, and not dwell on pain anymore. I can't express how glad I am to have reached this place and to have good friends to share my progress with. And I swore I would repeat something that was said tonight over coffee. The subject of the Axton family (Hoyt and his mother Mae) came up, and I mentioned how Mae was a schoolteacher from my hometown. My friend perked up and asked where that was, and I told her. She was incredulous. She swore that for years and years, when she was frustrated, she would say, "That's it. I'm selling everything and moving to Ada, Oklahoma." She had never met anyone from there before. I can't wait to tell her more about it now.
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