Elena Brower

So, yeah, quite a number of years ago, 12 years ago.

I feel like I'm just realizing that I don't have to hold it together anymore.

And that when I'm really struggling, it's okay to struggle and even talk about it.

Write about it.

No, it's gradual.

And the encouragement of dear friends who are empowering me to write the things that I want to write down without feeling like I have to write something pretty

You know, this week I actually wrote a piece that was meant to be about my chaplaincy graduation, but turned out to be a story of me going to the breast doctor the second time because there was a scary scan and like writing every detail of that.

And I was emboldened by actually the correspondent, which we were just talking about.

And I put things in parentheses and I was expressive and I used exclamation points, which have been verboten for years in my writing by myself, you know, by me.

And when I read it now, it's just so natural.

And I feel like this is finally happening.

I'm finally just being myself again.

in my writing without needing it to be, you know, beautiful, tasteful, savory.

It can be scary and even, you know, like there was a point where something happened in the scan and I made a face like I was eating a sweet tart in the 70s at the first Star Wars show when I was in the third row.

A kid could barely understand what was happening on the screen, but I remember the sweet tart.

I remember the face.

And I wrote about that face, and something switched.

So to your question, I do think there was a moment, and I think it happened this week.

And I think I feel like, okay, now I can write as myself.

Even the book, Hold Nothing, is so beautiful.