My sister sent me a picture of herself working her remote job at her computer with her five-month-old baby lying on the carpet next to her. My sister is smiling at her husband taking the photo, a burp cloth rested under her computer monitor, and the baby is sleeping with her hands in little fists. I hearted the photo and sent a message with a teary-eyed emoji. Then I happily went back to editing my manuscript, which no one asked me to write and only a handful of people have read in its entirety, in the total silence of my empty house.
It made me wonder, is my writing life about anyone but me?
A lot of good things have come out of building a life around writing and teaching. This summer, I taught a huge nonfiction workshop full of writers working on exciting projects, some of whom have taken classes with me before. I’ve been fortunate to place essays in fun publications, and I met some of my best friends in grad school. But I’ve also spent hundreds of hours on pages that may never see the light of day when I could have been, I don’t know, helping other people? My husband is a physical therapist who literally takes away people’s pain every day, and my sister is raising a human child, something I have so far avoided partially because I wouldn’t be able to afford it with my current work/writing balance and also because I’m afraid of having to think about someone other than myself in the amount a baby would require.
I’m living my dream, just like my sister is living her dream as a working mom. Except my dream feels selfish and hers seems admirable. I’m “doing what I love,” but like, is that allowed?
Growing up, the worst thing I could do was think of myself. In Catholic school, I learned about saints who dedicated their lives to the poor and refused to consume any food except the Eucharist. I was told to “pray unceasingly” and to “die to myself” the way Jesus died for our sins. Everything felt selfish. Going to movies with friends and ordering a small popcorn was selfish when I could have given that money to the church. Also, how could I find time for fun when I never found time to pray the rosary?
Even though I left the church years ago, these thoughts have followed me, especially around the topic of motherhood. When my mom was my age, she already had five kids under eight. Being a mother was always framed as a sacrificial duty that would secure my path to Heaven. Now when I spend an afternoon hiking or editing my book or shopping for pants, I have moments where I float above my body and think I’m not supposed to have time for this. I supposed to be too busy keeping children alive or building some kind of other career that benefits society. Instead, I’ve had years of time to myself, but what have I been doing? Writing a collection of essays about my religious trauma?
After leaving the church, I had to force myself to reclaim the word “selfish.” “You know me, I’m selfish,” I’d tell myself when I declined a religious event or family obligation. Quickly, I became less resentful. My chronic acid reflux went away. I was a pleasant person to be around. I no longer felt stuck doing things I didn’t want to do. Now, though, I’m more ambivalent about the idea of selfishness. I want to live a life I love and a life that extends beyond myself. I don’t want to do something just because it feels like what I’m supposed to do, but I also don’t want to make everything all about me.
I know I’m not the only writer who has this flavor of self doubt. In my summer class, participants wrote brave, funny, and inventive essays, but their most common workshop questions were things like “would anyone want to read this?” or “is this even worth writing?” The rest of the group always answered with an enthusiastic “hell yes!” We wanted to read it because it made us understand ourselves and the world a little differently, because it reminded us what it means to be human, because it made us all feel more connected. As readers, we could clearly see the service the essay was providing, but as writers, we worry no one cares, that it’s all a waste of time.
Books have always meant a lot to me. As a kid, I read Ella Enchanted so many times I had paragraphs memorized. The Series of Unfortunate Events got me through middle school. My neurons rearranged when I read The Outsiders, Their Eyes Were Watching God and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Later, I fell in love with memoirs like The Chronology of Water, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, Priestdaddy, Crying in H Mart, and so many more. This will forever be the summer I read There There and The Secret History. Life would not be the same without these books.
I have to consider—is being selfish really bad? Of course, there are destructive kinds of selfishness like hoarding resources or crossing boundaries. But I would argue I’m a more empathetic person since I stopped “dying to myself.” I can see other people better when I read and write, when I’m in touch with my own emotions. When I was religious, I had little capacity to feel beyond my own swallowed up resentment. It’s hard to understand others when you’re doing everything to stop yourself from feeling.
Looking at my marked up manuscript, I know I wrote it because I wanted to, but I also wrote it because I think I have a story that will resonate with people, because it’s the kind of book my younger self needed. There are a lot of girls like me who sat in youth groups and abstinence retreats, and I want to give them a story that offers camaraderie and hope for the future we choose for ourselves. That’s the work I’m doing for the time being, and maybe that’s enough.
I’m Lizzie, a writer and teaching artist from Minneapolis, MN. I have an MFA from Ohio State, and my essays have been published in Slate, Electric Literature, The Florida Review, Passages North, The Sun, and more.
I teach frequent online writing workshops. My full class list can be found here.
Wow, you so eloquently detailed a feeling I’ve had many times while writing! Especially right now as an almost 30 year old woman spending my free time writing instead of taking care of a baby, etc. this was freeing to read. Thank you!
As someone else who considered myself deeply religious for most of my five and half decades, I too have come to enjoy having a self (and being proud of it). If that (and writing) make me selfish, so be it.