Combat Love Book Club (Chapters 3+4)

Thoughts on writing...and rewriting...

Hi Sanity Squad — one of the things I’m enjoying about our March mini-book club is the chance to revisit my memoir and make adjustments. Of course, we can’t alter the past or rewrite our personal histories, be we can change the words we use to tell the story. The frustrating thing about writing a book (for me) is the static nature of the printed page. Once the book is typeset, the words are set in stone to live forever on the page just as they were crafted years earlier. That feels somehow too static nowadays in this era of Substack and social media where we can modify, delete, and tweak to our heart’s delight. So with the benefit of a few more years of wisdom, I’m taking the opportunity to change a word here or there if I find a better one to express what I was feeling.

I think any child of divorced parents will relate in some way to these next two chapters. The confusion and anxiety a child feels watching her parents’ union unravel is probably universal on some level. But I’ve not heard of other kids who share my experience of being happy or relieved that their parents were divorcing. These chapters capture why.

See you all on March 26th for our live bookclub meeting!