Sometimes things happen in our lives that are really hard to talk about. They remain buried and hidden until the right prompt comes along. For me, that prompt came in February of 2021 when I decided, on a whim, to take an online writing class. The first assignment from our teacher was to write a personal essay on “Saying Goodbye.” 

I knew right away what I needed to write about. For decades, I had struggled to come to terms with a particularly turbulent time in my life, but all my attempts to describe what had happened to me and to make sense of the decisions I had made, fell short. I struggled to find words that weren’t laden with negativity or that filled me with shame and regret. 

While I believed I had made amends to the people I had hurt, I hadn’t been as kind to myself. I still felt guilt over having wasted three years of my life, which is why receiving this prompt was so life-changing. Saying goodbye gave me permission to look at those events from my past in a completely new way. I was able to embrace the experiences I'd had and the people I'd met along the way with gratitude and gladness. 

The words poured out of me like water overflowing the banks of a river. By the following week I had completed a first draft which I shared with my small study group and later with the whole class. I also shared it with a friend who suggested I consider submitting it for publication. She worked as an editor for a quarterly magazine dedicated to providing Mormon women a safe space to share their life experiences. 

What I discovered over the course of the next six weeks was just how many other stories were tucked away inside me, bursting at the seams, crying out to be released. Each week we got a new prompt from our teacher and each week the stories came. 

Later that year, my first essay was published in the Exponent II magazine under the title, “The Belle of the French Quarter.” I look forward to sharing that essay here soon.

It has been a while since I've taken a writing class but I still enjoy discovering prompts that help me see things in different ways and which delightfully unlock chests of buried treasure. 

Thanks for reading along.

Image Credit: created by Bing, Microsoft’s AI program, when I inserted the following prompt: "A treasure chest full of stories."