The Help

I went to the movies yesterday to see The Help.  It was a good movie.  Some small differences from the book--- that I never finished... I got half way through before life got in the way and distracted me.. But my girlfriends read the whole thing and pointed out what little things I didn't know.

A reoccurring quote/theme in the movie is that "someone in the family is gonna be a writer..."  It kind of covers two characters, regarding the writing.  The main "voice" of the book, Skeeter, and the main subject of the book, Abeline.  Skeeter is a white girl from Jackson Mississippi and graduate of Ole Miss that dreams of being a writer and pursues her career anyway she can think of within her means.  Abeline is a black maid who has a soul that needs to write, and meets Skeeter that enables her to give a public voice to her writing. ...

...that might be the worst possible description of this book/movie ever..  but I'm trying to get to a point.  The point I'm trying to emphasize here is the theme of dreaming to be a writer.  It's funny, it was never a dream of mine until recently.  I always enjoyed writing, I think.  After my high school creative writing class was through, I guess I never had any reason to share any writing, and frankly, I don't know that I had anything worth writing about going on in my life for a good long time.

In college, during my hard core " i think I'm a hippie and can party my life and my parent's money away" phase, I would do a lot of writing while I was under the influence of acid or mushrooms.  I remember reading some of my stuff the next day and really liking some of it and being impressed with myself.  I only allowed my college boyfriend, Joe, to see any of it.  He had an open and yet level headed mind, and I trusted him with my deepest thoughts and feelings.

A few nights before my twin sister's wedding, one of my ex's was spending the night at my house.. ( he was a good friend of my brother in law to be, and was out with him that night and wound up back at my parent's house)  I woke up in the middle of the night to find my ex sitting on the end of my bed, flipping through my journal.. I flipped the fuck out.  I grabbed it from him, and freaked out and beat on him, and so forth and so on.   The next day I threw that journal away.  I flushed a bunch of the pages down the drain, and tossed the rest.

There was so much history in that book.  So many thoughts and emotions and memories of events that all had to go.  I never wanted to risk feeling that vulnerable again.  Until now, apparently.  Blogging here has given me so much.  Kind words from long lost friends.. Encouragement from new friends.  Positive feedback from family.  Now I have that dream..  I want to be the writer in my family.  I'm not sure how it might happen yet, I'm still waiting to be inspired to write something great.... but something tells me it's coming.