Would You Still Read It?…

I wrote this one in pencil. Not because I expected to make mistakes, but because I already knew I'd want to erase the parts that hurt the most.

So I ask you, what do you do when you realize that the most compelling stories of your life are often the ones you wish had never happened?

I can't fix it. No amount of editing, erasing, or perfectly placed indentation will alter the reality of my own truth. Typos become irrelevant when the sentence itself is made of grief. I can erase words. I can rewrite paragraphs. I can soften a memory until it barely resembles the moment that created it. What I can't erase is the fact that it happened.

I knew this one would be written in pencil because it was the only control I had left. The story had already happened. The trauma had already carved itself into my life. The only decision that remained was whether I would hand it to someone else.

Would I offer you the lowest moments of my life in exchange for understanding? Would I allow strangers to carry pieces of memories that once belonged only to me? Or would I keep them tucked away, where they remained painful but private?

Pencil, it is.

The piece is finished. I sit alone in my living room, staring at the screen for a long time before finally pressing Publish.

Then the messages begin.

The compliments. The kindness. All of the people telling me how powerful it is. How beautifully written it is. The tiny rush of dopamine arrives exactly as expected, followed almost immediately by something else.

A single question.

Would you still love this story if it hadn't cost me so much to write?

That question has changed the way I watch true crime.

I used to consume those documentaries the way millions of us do. Curled up under a blanket. Folding laundry. Half paying attention while someone's worst day became my evening entertainment. I don't think most of us watch because we're cruel. I think we watch because terrible things happening to someone else create the illusion that terrible things are less likely to happen to us. They become adult bedtime stories. Horrific enough to fascinate us, distant enough to let us sleep.

Now I can't watch them the same way.

I don't see plot twists anymore. I see families. I see fathers struggling to finish a sentence before hiding their faces in their hands. I see bedrooms left untouched. Dresses hanging in closets because someone still isn't ready to admit the child wearing them isn't coming home.

Sometimes I wonder if those families watch the documentaries made about them. Truly, what does it feel like to become a story other people recommend over coffee or in the office break room. I wonder whether the success of the documentary ever feels like a consolation prize for something that should never have existed in the first place.

Then I wonder whether writing is any different.

Every time someone tells me how strong I am for making it through such things, another question quietly follows.

Was it worth it?

Was the story worth the suffering it costed me to tell?

No amount of money, recognition, or praise can buy back the version of me that existed before those experiences. Trauma doesn't disappear because someone admired the way you described it. It lingers. It changes shape. It follows you into peaceful places and reminds you that memory doesn't care how successful you've become.

Maybe that's why I wrote this one in pencil.

Not because I wanted to erase it.

Because I needed to remind myself that even if I did...

the story would still exist.