When I was in high school I was absolutely obsessed with autobiographies. I tore through so many, loving the details of each one. All while I was in class, supposed to be paying attention. I just wanted to know what made people tick. So I grabbed a new autobiography at every opportunity.

Naturally, I thought one day I might write my own autobiography. Of course then, I thought I would never have anything interesting to say. Oh, high school Star, you sweet summer child.

Anyway, now that I am older, have experienced more trauma, and have cleared all my psychiatric diagnoses, I am realizing… I do have something to say. But then the problem becomes saying it.

Remember that trauma I mentioned? I was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) as an adult (it’s now in full remission). I grew up in an environment of constant stress, emotional abuse, and neglect and one way I coped with it was disassociating. Which did its job and got me through the worst of it. But when it comes to trying to remember much of anything dealing with my childhood, I’m rather at a loss.

I tried to deal with this problem in my disjointed memory, Moon Lost Her Memory, by writing snippets of my past. One memory at a time. But honestly, that is how these thoughts occur in my head. I don’t really know where they fit on larger timelines. I often don’t remember any of the finer details. I usually can capture the emotional impact, but I didn’t think it would be particularly compelling to try to write prose that would probably end up meandering nonsense that no one could follow. Myself included.

Then I thought, what if I do a poetry memoir? This makes a lot of sense as entirely too much of my life has been consumed by this form of writing. But as I have tried to put words to the page, I find myself stumped. Nothing is hitting like I want it to and most of my attempts are either completely rewritten multiple times until it loses the point or just deleted out of frustration.

Also, I can’t shake the feeling of wanting prose for certain sections. I did start a mixed-genre memoir, but it didn’t even crack 20,000 words and I hated just about everything I wrote. It was all show, no tell, and, as I was buried in physical health problems at the time, I wanted to delete the file and pretend like it never existed in the first place.

Of course, there is autobiographical fiction. Which helps craft a more complete narrative and can fill in memory gaps. However, I’ve always had a hard time wrapping my head around this idea. How much of it would be fiction, or much fact, or would anyone tell what it is? While this does lend well to the situation I’m working in, it seems difficult to grasp just what exactly I would be writing.

But as I have learned from previous books I have written, sometimes I get stuck because I’m not ready yet. The book will come, I just need to be receptive when I have a new idea, when I figure out how I want to express myself, and just get myself to my laptop when the time is right.

Maybe that’s not today. But it might be tomorrow.