Hi!

It’s me.

I was nearly sixty before I discovered writing.

Looking back, that’s probably because I spent most of my life helping everyone else with their stories before I got around to telling my own.

What surprised me wasn’t that I enjoyed writing.

What surprised me was how much it helped.

It helped me make sense of grief.

It helped me process things I didn’t understand when I was living through them.

It helped me connect with people I never would have met otherwise.

And perhaps most unexpectedly, it helped me find my voice.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about that lately.

I’ll let my favorite British lady explain.

Am I Right or Am I Write?

Notes from a Woman Becoming Audible 

by Lannie

I discovered writing in my late fifties.

Which feels a little ridiculous.

Most writers seem to emerge from childhood carrying a notebook and a tragic backstory.

I emerged carrying an orthopedic brace, a caregiver’s calendar, and a gray divorce.

But apparently there is no age requirement for finding your voice.

There is only the moment you finally get tired of not using it.

The respectable benefits of writing are well documented.

Writing helps me process my thoughts.

It lowers stress.

It helps me untangle grief, trauma, fear, anger, disappointment, and all the other emotional extension cords life leaves scattered across the floor for us to trip over.

It helps me make sense of things.

It helps me connect with people.

A stranger reads something I’ve written and says,

“I thought I was the only one.”

And suddenly neither of us is quite so alone.

Those are the benefits you’re supposed to mention.

The less respectable benefit is that writing gives me somewhere to put the thoughts that occur while I’m trying to inner-peace the hell out of my life.

I am genuinely trying to become a better person.

Every day.

Walking.

Reading.

Writing.

Reflecting.

Deep breathing.

Gratitude.

Perspective.

Growth.

Forgiveness.

I have invested an alarming amount of time attempting to become a calmer, wiser, more enlightened human being.

Then someone arrives giving you what appears to be a peace sign.

But when you look closely, one of the fingers is missing.

Which feels less like a blessing and more like feedback.

Weird, huh?!

Writing is what happens next.

Because writing allows me to punch people in the face.

With words.

Not literally.

I would like to be very clear about that.

This is metaphorical punching.

And not even everybody.

Just the occasional person who mistook kindness for weakness.

The occasional person who mistook silence for agreement.

The occasional person who watched me carrying half the world and somehow concluded I wasn’t carrying enough.

The occasional person who underestimated me while I was busy surviving things.

You know who you are.

Or perhaps you don’t.

That seems equally likely.

Writing became my rebuttal.

My chance to stand up after years of explaining myself to people who had no intention of understanding me and simply say,

“No, actually.

This is what happened.

This is what it felt like.

This is who I am.

And you don’t get to edit the story.”

The funny thing is that age has made me less interested in revenge and more interested in observation.

My mama had that gift.

She understood that humor is often wiser than anger.

A well-timed joke can reveal more truth than an argument ever will.

She taught me that people with a good sense of humor tend to have a better sense of life.

And when all else fails, a raised eyebrow can accomplish remarkable things.

So now I write.

Sometimes to heal.

Sometimes to remember.

Sometimes to understand.

Sometimes to connect.

And occasionally to leave a carefully worded breadcrumb for someone who once underestimated me.

Not because I need the last word.

But because after sixty-one years, I’m finally allowing myself to become audible.

Love, Lannie♡