THE INTRO
REAL TALK: THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET WILDLY HONEST
As a writer, speaker, and artist, a question that I’ve struggled with tirelessly in speaking my truth—and a question that I became quite intimate with in writing this book—is “What will they think of me?”
What this question really means is “What if they reject and abandon me?”
As a ravenous consumer of vulnerable narratives, the stories that resonate with me most are the ones that reveal in vivid detail the journey of the author. Not the this-is-why-I-am-so-great-and-successful kind of vivid detail. But the this-is-how-I-fucked-everything-up-and-got-knocked-down-and-stood-back-up kind of vivid detail. For it’s in their revelation of themselves that I can see myself more clearly.
I held myself to that same ethos in writing this book: to tell stories so truthfully and so transparently, and to fill them with wildly uncomfortable yet honest details that have me feel as if I am standing naked before you with nothing to hide. My hope in doing this is not so that you can know me, but rather so that you can see you.
This process of revelation—of turning myself inside out—is terrifying and invigorating and mortifying and exhilarating. It evokes my deep-seated fears of rejection, and strikes the chord of my darkest worry: that I may not be worthy of love and connection. Writing this book has taken every ounce of everything I have inside of me, and it’s been a profound teacher for my commitment to living a life that is more strongly led by Wonder than Worry.
Every time I’m about to say something too risqué or too edgy or too truthful, the “good girl” and “people pleaser” inside of me screams, You can’t say that. They might judge you. You might let people down. Stopppp!!!! There were many times in the process of writing this book when I questioned myself, the writing, and whether or not I “should” tell this or that story. It’s then that I considered my two options:
1. Write the “safe book”—the one that won’t ruffle any feathers or shake anything up.
2. Write the “true book”—the one that might ruffle some feathers and shake some shit up.
And because I’m committed to living a life that is true over one that is comfortable, I realized I had only one choice: to speak my wild truth.
My hope is that in reading this book, you will feel compelled to do the same.
Let’s begin.
DON’T DIE WITH YOUR GIFTS STILL INSIDE
I was in the kitchen of my grandmother’s house when the phone rang. “It’s your dad,” she said, turning to me and handing over the phone. “But please don’t tell your mom,” she whispered.
I was three years old.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said. “Hi, sweetheart,” he replied. “I miss you. I know I haven’t been around much. I’m going to be gone for a little while. Know that no matter what—I’ll always love you.”
Even though I was only three, I remember the conversation like it was framed as a photograph in my mind. I can close my eyes and picture where I was standing in the kitchen, the coiled telephone wire I wrapped around my tiny fingers, and the way my grandmother looked at me when she said, “Don’t tell your mom about this, okay?”
I knew something wasn’t right here.
My father was a brilliant singer, songwriter, musician, and businessman. He was lead singer and played several instruments in a band called Dreamer. He used his financial savvy to give back to those in need. On his first date with my mom, he made quite the first impression when she tripped and almost fell into a puddle of mud wearing an all-white ensemble. Right before she made a splash, he swooped in to catch her. He had her, and every person he met, believe that the world revolved around them. When he was with you, he was with you.
But then he started running away. Between an abusive childhood and an addictive personality, the only way he knew how to handle his pain was through numbing. Cocaine. Rock and roll. Alcohol abuse. Cheating. Breaking into our home under the influence, taking me out from my crib, and driving eighty miles until my mom ferociously chased him down. You name it, he did it. He wasn’t exactly winning at father of the year.
And then, just a few weeks after our chat, he took it too far.
Out for a bachelor party, and under the influence of who knows what, he decided to get behind the wheel. He fell asleep, drove off a highway overpass, and under a truck. The man in his passenger seat, who was getting married the next day, died instantly at the scene. My dad, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was thrown to the backseat. He never regained full consciousness.
He spent the next year of his life in a coma, and the eight years after that with severe brain trauma in a care center. My momma, who wanted to protect me and the way I remembered him, kept me at a distance. That space dwindled when on a school field trip to a hospital in third grade, I asked, “Is my dad here?” I was curious to see the man who helped make me. I wanted to remember the way he would touch my hand and look at me. I wanted to remember being in his presence while he was still here. I was now nine years old, and Momma agreed to let me see him.
When we walked into his room at the care center, I saw a man I could hardly recognize. His face was swollen, and his mouth was connected to machines for breathing. An I.V. strung from his arm into bags of blood, and there were devices tracking his vitals. As I swallowed the harrowing scene I had walked into, my eyes opened widely when I noticed photos of me lining the walls at every age. My nose tickled as the sensation of tears began to well in my eyes.
I spent the next few hours with him, asking him questions he didn’t have the capacity to answer, laughing at his goofy smile, and taking in the dose of Dad that I’d craved my entire youth. When it was time to go, I squeezed his hand and wished him well. I wondered if I’d ever see him again.
Every day after that, I thought of him and sent him peace. I wished for his misery to end, and for his life to begin anew. It was just a few days before Father’s Day—on my grandmother’s birthday—when I received the news that he had died. I remember that moment vividly—the way my hair was brushed up in a ponytail, the crossed position of my legs, and the white and flowered journal I was writing in—because in that moment, I felt the most profound sense of trust and relief. His suffering had gone on for too long, and now he could finally rest in peace.
What did upset me, however, was his wasted talent, creativity, and gifts. While I didn’t have the language to interpret my emotions at the time, now I can put words to the wondering I felt as a kid: I wondered how his life may have been different if he had more direction, more encouragement, and more self-compassion. I wondered about the contributions he could have made in his one lifetime had he worked up the courage to face himself, to work through his demons, and to understand the root of his pain. I wondered what art may have come through him, what business contributions he may have made, and the sense of self he may have discovered along the way. He had so much to give, but he got lost along the way.
Call it intuition, my higher self, or a sliver of something I heard from Oprah once, but I very specifically heard a calm voice whisper these words: Please don’t die with your gifts still inside.
And now, I turn to you, and say the same.
Please don’t die with your gifts still inside.
Please don’t be like the majority who regret what they could have done, but didn’t do, as Australian nurse Bronnie Ware saw when she counseled the dying in their last days. “I wish I would have lived a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me” is what she uncovered as the most common regret. In their final breaths, most people hadn’t honored even half of their dreams. Instead, they took those unexpressed gifts to the grave.
In the book Die Empty, Todd Henry says the most valuable land in the world is not Manhattan, or the oil fields of the Middle East, or the gold mines of South Africa. It’s the graveyard. “In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, ‘I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’ One day, however, their tomorrow ran out.”
When I think back to the day of my dad’s car accident, I can close my eyes and imagine the long list of tomorrows that may have gone through his mind when he decided to drive under the influence:
Tomorrow, I’ll drink a little less.
Tomorrow, I’ll make a more responsible decision.
Tomorrow, I’ll watch my best friend get married.
Tomorrow, I’ll call my baby girl.
Tomorrow, I’ll resolve my differences with her mother.
Tomorrow, I’ll finally record my album.
Tomorrow, I’ll …
But his tomorrow never came.
I don’t want to be like my father. I remember that thought so intensely as a teenager and young adult. I don’t want to be like my father, which really meant, I don’t want to die with my gifts still inside. It’s only now, as an adult, that I can see how I was my father’s gift, and his accident was one of mine.
His untimely death birthed me into the realization that life is fragile and every moment is an invitation to be alive. It led to my profound curiosity around what it means to live each day fully, which sent me on a path of asking—and seeking to answer—a central question: How do we express the fullness of who we are and what we have to give?
Copyright © 2018 by Amber Rae