I TELL STORIES. That would be my sister’s version of our tale, the suggestion being that she writes the truth. For me, even that distinction is a story. What to do when you have different versions of a family tale? Well, years ago, and on the couch of a good psychiatrist, a question arose about my childhood that made me realize I was in the right hands, professionally speaking.
The doctor was not one of those who wanted me to relive everything, instead wanting me to move on with some alacrity. I liked that, especially when he summed up his outlook for his clients this way: What he apparently said was, “You must get a version of your childhood you can live with and live with it.”
But I thought he said something else altogether, and said to him, “An aversion to my childhood. Nice. Somebody pays you for this advice? My sister has an aversion to our childhood. I don’t need one too.”
“A version,” he repeated, laughing.
My sister and I live by different rules; we give different gifts, and even have different random facts we share. Two sides of the same coin, or potato/Po-tah-toe, and all that, we are not bookends. We are sisters: Different because we grew up in the same household, not in spite of that fact. Do we have different versions of a family tale? Every single time.
Does this make a memoir impossible? Does the sheer knowledge that someone else can readily disagree with your version diminish your tale, or make it less true?
Not a bit—and quite the opposite. None of us grows up utterly without the influence of others. The key in successfully writing about your life is to stay in the voice of how it occurred to you and how it looks from your point of view, staking out the territory of how you remember it and making no claims to this being the only possible or true version.
What to do when you have different versions of a family tale? What to say when everyone tells you that it didn’t happen that way? Now, you can agree. It didn’t happen that way to them.
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Pam says
Thank You for this message! I have run into this exact scenario! I was at first hurt, then angry, when they “looked down” at me and my experiences. Then Surprised when they said, “Hey, write what you want. It is your Truth…even though as far as I’m concerned you’re wrong about this and that from “My” point of view. Good Luck with it!”
marion says
So, glad.
Write what you know, Pam.
Write what you know.
Best,
Marion
Angel Booth says
My brother and sister did not read Sobering Thoughts, my account of our childhood with alcoholic parents. I tried to tell them it was so much more than just an accounting (like they might actually learn something useful as I did by writing it). My brother asked me if it was true. I told him it was my truth, and he had nothing else to say. I think it was not made for my generation! My nieces and my daughter read it. And now we have lots more to talk about without rancor or regret.
marion says
Thank you, Angel.
This is a fine response to the whole idea of separate stories from the same household.
Write well.
Best,
Marion