inquiry

Loved bluebirch's inner blog narrative debate made public!

I don't know what to write, though. Sometimes I would like to write fiction, sci-fi or fantasy, but I don't think I have a story to tell. Sometimes I want to write about what happens in my life, as a kind of diary, but who would really care? Most of all, I would like to write about my life, about the heritage I received from growing up in a dysfunctional family, the heritage I brought with me into all new relationships, which, ultimately, ruined them.

I'm looking forward to any/all of that.

But where to begin such a story? Where does the story about life begin?

With the thought 'I' (gaining enough self-referential momentum to wind up (according to some) ignore-antly convinced of its thing-in-itself-hood).

Does it begin with my birth? A birth that I have been told was very dramatic: it was a breech birth, the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around my neck, I didn't breathe, I had no pulse, I was dead. Resuscitation succeeded, but the obstetrician said there was a high risk for permanent brain damage and offered my parents a place at an institution for this presumably mentally disabled child. Thankfully, they denied the offer.

While the body had been conceived, there's a good chance (though it's almost as hard to believe as it is to prove) the 'I' you refer to had itself not yet been conceived (mind sense).

Does it begin with my first memories? How I was afraid of the thunder during a heavy rainfall; how I scratched my little finger against the white brick wall of the garage; how I managed to persuade (or rather blackmail) my father to buy a toy excavator by screaming loudly at the department store (he gave it to me on the premise I never ever did that again, and I accepted the terms); how my oldest sister waved at me in the pram and said “bye, bye”, and I thought she intended to just leave me there and tell my parents I had gotten lost somewhere.

Damned sisters, always causing trouble! :–)

Does it begin with my parents narratives? With my father, who, as the youngest son of four, grew up in the mute shadow of his father, my grandfather, the abusive alcoholic that his mother and his siblings never talked about after they threw him out? With my mother, who lost her own father when she was only 16 and had to take care of her little sister and her own fragile, partly psychotic mother? Trauma runs in the family.

Trauma be good spice in the writing kitchen.

Does it begin with my first divorce in my late 20:s when I, for the first time in life, actually felt grown-up and realised I had to take responsibility for my own life, not just depend on anyone else and blame all my miseries and misfortunes on my parents? Does it begin when I became a parent myself and realised it was much more difficult than I had ever realised, that I wasn't fit to be a parent at all and still isn't? Does it begin with those fateful days when I broke down and just walked aimlessly in the middle of the road until the police showed up and brought me to the psychiatric emergency clinic? Does it begin when I, after years and years of medication begun to realise that I couldn't be fixed, that I was as broken as I was and the only thing I could do was to accept that fact?

<mild-playful-sarcasm>Now, why would anyone do all that when all they really have to do is blog?</mild-playful-sarcasm>

<incoherent to the point of ineffable thoughts about a Beatles song spoof called “All You Need Is Blog”>

Does it begin with my second divorce, in which I lost everything I had found: a home, a history, a place where I belonged?

That works for me too.

I guess the narrative begins in different places depending on what kind of narrative I want to tell. That I do not know. I only know I want to tell it. At least, I want to tell it to my children, so not all of my own, my parents and my siblings narratives are lost when I die.

What I want to read most (although your writing skills are such that I think I'd enjoy whatever topics, narrative beginnings, etc. that you settle on) would start with your earliest recollections of entertaining the notion of “I”, and then how that notion has accumulated layers, cruft, side-gigs, how it has morphed, redefined itself, established and became subservient to its own priorities, endured valleys of doubt, conquered bouts of delusion, etc., etc., etc.