I don’t remember when I decided I was a terrible storyteller.

I think it was after an improv audition in college, followed in quick succession by two stories I told oh so poorly.

My clever friends would have none of it and they teased me mercilessly.

They still do.

Anyway, at some point I stopped trying to come up with a beginning, middle, and end.

But a few weeks back, I dove headfirst into setting up an etsy shop. I’d been thinking of doing it for a few years and decided 2020 was the year to dedicate myself to seeing whether or not this creative venture could amount to anything.

Dang, but it was a lot of detail and hooboy was it a messy sight! And I let it sit there like that, in the messy, until today.

Today, I embraced the messy, refused to feel shame about my poor storytelling chops, and made some changes.

I spent a few hours drafting *my story*, along with rewriting several descriptions of the items for sale there.

It finally made sense. I felt I could draw out a connection to the legacy of the women in my family that I have learned from, including my grandmothers, mother, and aunts.

I feel a more than a little vindicated from my self-imposed storytelling exile, truth be told:

My maternal grandmother, Louise, was a practical and pragmatic Irish-American mother of nine. She couldn’t be bothered with fussing over everyday clothing for little ones and if the clothing still had lots of life and wear in it, it continued to be passed down.

It’s a start and I feel OK with where things ended up.

I’m comforted in the knowledge that I can return to it to improve upon it, if I have some ideas about how I would do that.

And there are worse things than being a poor storyteller.

I share this vulnerability because it’s real. If you want to check out what I wrote (and more), by all means have a go at it HERE.

---

Header image: One of the Louise dresses, inspired by my maternal grandmother. ~ mas