Finding My Voice
By Sara Esther Crispe: April 20, 2015: Category Inspirations, Living with the Times
I lost my voice. Even worse, I’m not sure I ever really had it. Or better stated, I can’t be sure if it was mine to begin with.
It took me years to be able to say that I am a writer. It just sounds so presumptuous. After all, what defines a writer? Anyone who writes? Or one who gets paid for that writing? If that is the definition, I guess I should say that I was a writer. Which is even more depressing because that means I have lost more than just my voice. I have lost a part of who I am. A big part.
Here is the greatest irony. For years I worked for others. I wrote for others. I was paid to write for others. So I did what I was hired to do. I loved what I did. I had readers. I had audience. I got feedback. My writing seemed to really resonate with others. It paid the bills. It fed my ego. But it wasn’t enough.
I was never entirely clear if my writing was my writing or if I was conforming to the mold that worked. A mold I may have even created. I simply can’t remember.
It’s like that story you tell. You think it’s true. You’ve told it so many times that it feels true. But there is that part of you that wonders if maybe, just maybe, you made part of it up. Or exaggerated a bit for effect. Or copied a part of someone else’s story. You tell yourself it doesn’t really matter. But you know it does. It is one thing to take creative license with something. It is another beast altogether when you can’t remember if you have. When you just don’t know the truth anymore.
All these years I waited, I yearned for the chance to just write whatever I wanted. However I wanted. And here I am. My dream fulfilled. And I have nothing to write. I have nothing to say. Even if I do, I no longer know how to say it.
So I struggle. And I wait. And today I write. Not because I have anything to say. Not because I have found my voice. But because I am hoping that after a ridiculously long hiatus that maybe by being honest with myself, on paper, something will be triggered. Something will come back. Something maybe I don’t recognize will appear that I want to get to know. Or what I know will start to feel authentic.
I write because I can no longer not write. I write because I know I have a voice even if I am not entirely sure how to express it. And I know that when I don’t write I allow myself to be enslaved. And we just celebrated leaving slavery. It is time to get out! I need to leave my personal Egypt. I need to share again, to write to tell. To create my own Haggadah, my own story.
I find comfort in knowing that the Hebrew month of Iyar follows that of Nissan. Nissan is the month in which Passover is celebrated. Nissan is also the month connected to speech. Freedom is defined by speech. The freedom to express oneself. The freedom to question.
But freedom is hard. With freedom comes responsibility. Perhaps that is what I am scared of. In the past if someone didn’t like my writing I could rationalize that it wasn’t really mine. It was whatever the other wanted. It was just a job. It wasn’t me. Yet now I have this freedom to write for myself. To write what I want. And that comes hand in hand with the fear of rejection. For if my writing is rejected it is part and parcel of who I am. And that is terrifying.
Intellectually I know that freedom is not an end goal but a process. But putting that into practice is the challenge. Step one is moving away from Egypt. Check. Done that. But the next step is finding my voice. And that is where I find myself now. But in just a few days we leave the month of speech and enter the month of healing. Iyar is an acronym for Ani Hashem Rofecha, ‘I am your Creator, your Healer.’ If freedom is so wonderful, why should we need healing when we are supposedly in the best place ever? And yet that is specifically when we do.
Now that I have broken free, now that I am on my own, I am also alone. And now, more than ever before, I need Him. I need support, I need guidance, I need healing.
I pray that healing comes to me in the way of clarity. Clarity of thought, clarity with words, clarity of expression. Because I desperately want to write. I desperately need to write. But I need to find my voice. My voice.
So let this serve as my first expression of my freedom. The freedom to admit how truly enslaved I still am in so many ways. And the freedom to know that I can no longer allow myself to stay silent.
Finding My Voice,
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Good luck. It will come.
BH Hi Sara Esther,
As someone who has never written for pay
rather for myself I can totally hear you as I
just finished my first book! It still needs to be
edited and published but the challenge is
not of sharing a voice, but rather ones heart.
No doubt you are a very talented writer and
am sure there are many waiting for you to
share. That is what your writing has been
even when you had guidelines and were
getting paid.
L’hatchila ariber…today is the Mittler Rebbe’s
birthday…and those are my blessings to
you…just write, from your heart as you always
did and leave the rest to He who gave you
this talent as a blessing.
Chodesh Tov u’mevurach. Chaya
What a beautiful, emotionally honest piece. I’m thinking: we are constantly, evolving and growing. You have always had a voice. It’s just that you have recently entered a new chapter, so the question at this moment is not, “Do I HAVE a voice?”, but rather, “What is my NOW voice?”
…in appreciation of your powerful inspiration.
Heard. VERY heard! You might wonder about your voice, but you just roared! And I’m sure that many many women heard.
Finding our voice is nothing less than expressing the Divine in us. and that is a personal geula.
just by saying what you said. being vulnerable and real opens the gates… what you are struggling with I think touches the real core ?s–WHO AM I? and WHY AM I HERE?
so lets be gentle with ourselves– like a birth comes in stages. and at our births, we need help.
I am confident that the more you write, and the more each of us express our truths, (or even the truths of our struggle to find our truth!) that it becomes clearer BY VIRTUE OF SHARING.
it’s one thing to write in a journal and an entirely different reality to tell another human. This is key. being held, affirmed, identified with opens us up and dissolves the blocks.
So- encouragement encouragement! it’s a real pleasure to read what you write and to hear you within it. Keep going.
so much love
Aviva
You have embodied in words, the only way that I know how to begin writing. And I write books but before I begin any of my books, I confess that I know nothing and the book will be the journey of an even deeper confession of what I do not know. Then humanity guides me to the next book reflecting that last experience. Then, hopefully the new experience allows me to share what I’ve learned about relating to humanity more effectively. Writing takes courage,to meander through a yet untraveled path and then,reach out our hand and say “Come along.”
Thank you for your authentic and radiant expression and for being willing to share your truth and journey. You help give me courage to express my truth more bravely and willingly in the day to day, moment to moment choices and challenges.
When I pressed the Rating icon, it registered less than a 5 (where I tapped). Five +++ was my intention.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
Sara Esther:
I love this article, it is so relevant to the topic of speech. Thank you!
I’m a year late to the party, but I’m so happy I found you here. Loved your work on that other website and love this even more. Now I’m going to do that annoying thing people do–instead of responding to what you wrote, they write about themselves. Yes, I’ve become one of those people, too. I can’t help it. What you wrote resonated so deeply with me. The details are different, of course, but the theme is the same.
Even though I worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist for more than 25 (!!!) years, I still wasn’t sure I was a writer. I told other people’s stories. (And I loved my work. I couldn’t believe I got paid to write!) But deep inside I had that nagging worry that I was a fraud, that one day “they” would discover that I had no talent, that I just let a higher energy use me as a channel. (Perhaps that’s the truth after all. Who knows?)
By then, of course, my self esteem was tied to my work. After marrying and having a couple of kids, I switched to a national women’s magazine. Better pay, better hours. And once again I started getting promotions. I may not have been a great writer, but I was a great editor.
Most likely I’d have kept on editing until retirement if it had been my choice. But it wasn’t. In 2011, as the economic crisis of 2008 cast its long shadow and print publications were becoming dinosaurs, I lost my job. And believe me, it doesn’t feel like freedom when you’re collecting unemployment.
So I started tutoring high school kids prepping for the SATs and ACTs. It’s not my passion but I love working with the kids and hey, it pays (some of) the bills. But still… it’s not what I am here to do. “You need to write,” my kosher psychic and best friends told me.
I’ve no idea how I stumbled across this piece, but I’m so glad I did. Like you, I’m pushing myself just to write even when I have nothing to say. Sometimes it’s not that good. I don’t care. (Best part of getting older? You stop caring what anyone thinks. As long as they are not mean about it.)
I comment on YouTube videos. I joined an international community of people improving their lives one mini-action at a time. I comment on anything that strikes my interest. And my name and photo are there, because I think it’s just plain chicken to make nasty comments and hide behind an avatar.
Well, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Except for a collection of 30 haiku with photographs that I wrote for that mini-action international website. Think I may finally start a blog and use my haiku to introduce each one. And I may not.
Wishing you inspiration, courage, and that stick-to-it attitude you have. I read your pieces where you used to write and I loved them. You have a gift, you know you do, so I’m happy that you’ve started. By the way, it was a very, very good start.
I’m looking forward to the next installment! Perhaps by then, I’ll have a first installment of my own.