Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash
Reader, “Lucy’s Snippets” will be the third book in a sequel that started with “Alfred’s Journey to Be Liked.” “Hannah’s Journal to Be Happy,” the second book, will come out in 2024. Then “Lucy’s Snippets: Born on the Wrong Side of the Track” will follow. This is the prologue that starts the novel.
Hannah told me that I need to set the stage before spilling my guts—or, more accurately, telling my story. Hannah knows about writing, and we both now know about do-overs since that has been the history of our relationship.
Hannah and her brother, Ben, came two summers ago to visit her dad, who is my boyfriend. His name is Marvin. It was rocky at the start, and I only realized later I was jealous of their relationships. I haven’t had that kind of love, as you will soon discover.
One thing led to another, and eventually, we shared—or, as my therapist, Carol, would say— “owned” our feelings. I learned a lot from Hannah, both about writing and also about hidden rage.
The idea of hidden rage was particularly interesting because Hannah spent the summer trying to figure out what Coach’s words meant: Your anger doesn’t know its home.
Without going into much detail, Coach was the guy who helped Hannah and her best friend, Alfred. Alfred lacked a circle of friends until Coach arrived and helped him build social muscle. And Hannah? Her anger spills into places it doesn’t belong. That’s when she heard about her anger not knowing its home.
Homeless anger (my term) was in the back of Hannah’s mind when she and Ben spent the summer with us. To say I wasn’t excited about their arrival is a big understatement, but we got used to each other, and then positive feelings grew, and then I realized that I have a homeless anger problem, too. Oops! I think I’ve got a run-on sentence.
I told Hannah I thought I have the same homeless anger problem, and she said it would help to share my feelings with someone who wasn’t a relative and who was trained to understand these things.
That’s how I discovered Carol, who mostly listens and asks me tough questions. I try to be honest with myself and see what I can learn. One thing I’ve learned is that I coped with a rough start in ways that I couldn’t have put words to. Carol says it was my instincts at work.
I’ve shared my journey with Hannah for two reasons. She has become either my best friend or sister by choice. Anyway, I think she’ll benefit from hearing what I learned. Also, I was preparing to ask her to be an extra pair of eyes and brain in reading my story. She could also fix my run-on sentences. Here’s what I heard back:
“Lucy, you have enough brain for a whole community. You don’t need me for that. But I am happy to be an extra pair of eyes and ask questions when I don’t understand something. And yes, I might fix your run-on sentences unless it is a stylistic choice. Writers do that sometimes.”
Just like that, Hannah made me feel smart. She also told me I needed a preface. “They don’t know why you’re doing this.” She also suggested that I warn the reader of some very sad moments because “not everyone can do sad.”
So, reader, now I will speak to you (even though Hannah said that authors don’t usually come off their page like I am doing):
I am 36 and have spent a long time looking at myself in a not-good way. I am now seeing myself differently. If you are the kind of reader who needs to read the ending first to see if you can weather the storm, you should know I am in a healthy relationship with Marvin, and the world feels full of possibilities in a way that it never did. I cut hair by day and go to school by night.
As I’ve shared my story with Marvin, he feels happy too.
“Who knows, you might even feel positive enough someday to want kids,” he said as he hugged me.
That made me smile, too, but also get scared. I think the smile was slightly bigger than the fear, but I would need Hannah’s friend, Alfred, to help me measure that. Alfred is a whole other story that I won’t get into other than he is intensely special and outside the scope of this story.
If you’ve made it through the preface, I say, “Thank you.” I will be honest and not sugarcoat things. Marvin has read each piece and says he was surprised that I could make so many observations at a young age. Mostly, though, he says he is happy that he understands me better.
I repeated Carol's thoughts that we don’t need words to know what we must do. Carol helped me understand this through an analogy of a fallen cake.
“You might try and fix it with extra frosting and sprinkles so that it looks better, but inside, you will remember that it has fallen. It will help you next time to make a better cake.”
Maybe that’s why I’m a baker… imagining some better cakes ahead.
This takes me to my final note: I am dedicating this book to Hannah, who inspired my do-over, and to Victoria, who you will discover was the friend that became my lifeboat.
And now, here we go. Hold on tight.
I'm looking forward to both books, Jill. Already intrigued.