Family Matters
I was talking with a friend recently about a new business venture she wanted to start online. She was trying to figure out the best course of action for success, and I mentioned if she tried something and it didn’t work, she could just try something else. When she said she didn’t want to fail, I replied, “Who cares?” Her response was, “You had a pretty good childhood, didn’t you? Like, with supportive parents?” Confused, I said, “Yeah, I guess. Why?” She proceeded to tell me how her fear of failure stemmed from how she was raised, where failure wasn’t an option. And suddenly it all made sense.
As I get older, I’m finding trauma to be a much more common theme among my friends, at least those I’ve met as an adult. The more discussions I have with people, the more I realize how rare it is to have grown up with loving, caring parents who actually believed in me and my sisters. And for a writer, that seems to be even rarer.
Not that I wasn’t aware of that early on – people processing their trauma through writing what they know. That was actually a concern of mine, finding meaningful things to write about or coming up with ideas that would be impactful. As a teenager, I rebelled against my parents for being there for me, because what a boring thing to write about! LOL Now I’m beyond grateful.
That goes for the rest of my family as well. The perfect example comes from our recent vacation to Cape Cod. I had brought some copies of my newest novel to get pictures for social media at the house where we were staying. There was plenty of kitsch to use for different backgrounds, and my sister, brother-in-law and niece went around the house trying out various setups for photographs.
Then on one of our beach days, my sisters and mom joined me for a photo shoot done by my niece where we sat in a line in a 50s-style pose holding up my book as if reading it. It was windy as hell that day and it took some work to get the chairs to stay up and the right angle for the camera. But we got some great shots for this blog post and social media to go along with it. It was so much fun.
I feel very lucky to have the family and close friends I’ve had over the years. I just laughed when someone from my writing critique group asked me, “Who are all these people?” when referencing the 30 or so audience members at my book launch. I was so thankful for everyone who showed up at the store and over Zoom, and I had a great first month of sales for an indie author. Never mind even making it to this point as an author, always having loved ones in my corner cheering me on and helping me improve. Having talked with a lot of writers, that kind of support system is a blessing.
And it really came into play at the beginning of this vacation. My boyfriend’s mother passed away a couple hours before we landed in Boston, and we had to make last-minute plans to get to Worcester. One of my brothers-in-law picked us up at 11 p.m. and drove us there, while my other brother-in-law picked us up from Worcester to bring us to Centerville for the rest of the trip. It was a difficult time, especially for my boyfriend of course. But having gone through a similar experience with my dad, everyone was very understanding and offered any help they could. It made the whole situation easier to deal with, and my boyfriend said it was a nice distraction.
When I was younger, I took all of this for granted, being naïve at how much trauma existed in the world. Now that I’ve seen and heard it from so many others, I’m incredibly grateful to my parents and extended family for their love and guidance. And I’ll be sure to pay it forward with anyone that comes into my life.