Felicia Chen: "Dear Carmen Maria Machado: Telling Myself Stories"

Dear Carmen Maria Machado: Telling Myself Stories

By Felicia Chen

I remember first telling myself stories when I was about six years old.  Every Friday night, my parents and I would go to church where I went to my children’s programs.  The ride back was only 20 minutes, but my six year old brain thought we were driving for centuries on end.  Hearing all my groaning in the backseat, my parents had an idea.  Their compromise included only two rules for me: I needed to tell stories for the whole ride back and the stories must relate to one of the lessons I had learned in church that day.  In return, my parents would give me a dime for each story I told.  In my mind, using my own words for money sounded like a great deal since I was planning on complaining the whole ride anyways. 

It was a lot harder than I originally thought: I even had trouble making names for characters and finding a setting.  Finally, I settled on the name Pebbles for my main character – a creative twist to my favorite cereal – and Campbell’s as the setting for my courageous protagonist.  After a solid 10 minutes of brainstorming, I started my story with “once upon a time.”  The first time provided the greatest challenge for six year old me as I mainly said “uh” and “um” for the majority of the story.  Despite my failed efforts, my parents still gave me the dime at the end of the night.  This treasure gave me the encouragement I needed to keep telling stories every Friday. 

This ritual of storytelling on our rides back from church lasted about three years.  By nine years old, I reached the golden age where I believed my short stories were childish and my newly founded insecurities flourished.  I stopped telling myself—or anyone—stories for a long time because of my perceived embarrassment.  As I cried about my first training bra, I found myself covering my changing body with baggy clothes and my energetic words with silence. 

Up until a year ago, I was in the mindset that I forever lived in an age of teenage-hood, that I was above the stories I used to tell when I was six years old.  It was not until Ms. Townsend’s Creative Writing Workshop last year that I learned to let go of my pride and explore my creativity to write stories.  Every weekend, I went home and read my stories to my parents with the giddiness that I felt when I was six years old. 

            In my final story for the class, I wrote about my own personal experience with an emotionally abusive relationship.  I never imagined that I could express regret and sadness for the situation through writing and storytelling, but I submitted this final draft and left all of these feelings behind—like I had with him.  With this story, I was finally comfortable to express myself and to use my voice again. 

I consider that story to be my first one.  It gave me the courage to start over with my life and with that, I earned so much more than just a dime.