1. The Queen of MiseryTHE QUEEN OF MISERY If something is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory. We notice the scar, not the skin. --VIET THANH NGUYEN1 Cory and Reyna, 2007 When The Distance Between Us was published in 2012, a friend suggested that my publisher include a box of tissues with each book. "You''re the queen of misery," she declared. "I cried the whole time." My friend meant it as a compliment--that I had transformed my childhood suffering into beautiful art, and she was touched. Still, I apologized for making her cry and confessed that my writing comes from a dark place, from profound anguish.
My deepest wound. I don''t know how to write any other way. Perhaps this is why my favorite piece of advice from my literary madrina, Sandra Cisneros, is to write about the things we wish we could forget. Even before I met her, I followed Sandra''s advice. As a young writer, everything was about the things I would rather forget. It wasn''t difficult. There wasn''t much else to my life. Happy memories were few and far between.
While writing Distance , I worried readers would find it too depressing. I tried hard to come up with happy memories. No luck. The memory vault was nearly empty of joy. I even called my siblings, begging, "Any happy memories I can borrow to add to the story?" My older sister Mago had the same problem. She unequivocally declared, "I have no happy memories." Eventually, we cobbled together a short list: Christmas posadas in Mexico, seeing the ocean for the first time, playing at the park while our father made carne asada, Disneyland, my first and only Barbie, my quinceañera. A few years later, I worked on the sequel, A Dream Called Home , writing about even more things I''d rather forget.
Again, I struggled to recall happy moments, and this memoir was turning out as bleak as the first. I worried about overwhelming the reader with more "misery." Sure enough, one of my editors for this memoir suggested I cut the last chapter, the one about my wedding. In her comments, she wrote: I think you can cut the wedding. This is such a downer. I know it happened, and it''s sad and awful, but as your reader, and because I care about this book, I just don''t think it''s necessary. I want this book to end on a high note. Usually, in books and films, ending a story with a wedding would be the opposite of a downer--it would be joyous.
It would be romantic, a celebratory conclusion satisfying to the reader. I wanted my book to end happily. As I plotted the story, my wedding seemed perfect. But once more, my brain had twisted it, turning it into another I wish I could forget moment. Even my husband took issue with how I depicted our wedding, saying, "Don''t ruin one of the happiest days of my life." So I cut the scene. The way my mind had stored the memory of our wedding was typical for me. Instead of remembering the joy, I had retained the negative parts with great clarity and detail, pushing the good parts into the haze.
In other words, my mind took a happy moment and made it hurt. As Viet Thanh Nguyen writes in A Man of Two Faces , "It''s easier to remember the deprivation than the joy. One burns. The other fades."2 Specifically, what was burned into my mind was the sadness and disappointment I experienced when, as we were getting ready for the ceremony, my father, as usual, ruined things. He paced for an hour, looking at his watch. "When will this wedding start? It''s getting late. I promised my pastor I would mow the lawn today and do some other repairs at the church.
" By then my father had given up alcohol, focusing his addictive nature on religion. He had joined a Seventh-day Adventist church and was always there. He would never attend our children''s birthday parties or celebrate holidays with us because he was always at church or his new religion didn''t permit such celebrations. My siblings and I had mostly given up on a relationship with him, accepting his absence in our lives. But this day was different. "It''s my wedding day," I said. He looked out the window at the afternoon sun, measuring how much daylight remained. "You said the ceremony would only be half an hour," he said.
"It''s my wedding day!" I said again. "That means dinner, dancing, cake--the cake you bought me! You''re supposed to dance with me. You''re the father of the bride, aren''t you?" "I promised my pastor," he repeated, then left the room. My sister handed me a tissue, and I dabbed at my eyes, trying to keep the tears in so I wouldn''t ruin my makeup. "Just forget about him, Nena," Mago said as she continued doing my hair. "If he wants to leave, then let him. You know how he is." When we finally gathered outside in the garden to begin the ceremony, I thought my father had left, and I would have to walk down the aisle alone.
My stepmother reassured me he was still around. She found him sulking in a corner of the garden and told him we were ready. The mariachis took their places at the front of the procession. I took my place at the very end, and my father stood next to me. I put my arm through his, and I did not say a word to him, nor he to me. As soon as he delivers me to the love of my life , I told myself, I won''t care if he leaves. To his credit, he stuck around for the father-daughter waltz, then took off. My chapter continued with other negative things that happened at my wedding.
Because of our limited budget, we had the wedding on a Friday evening to cut costs, and guests arrived late, frazzled from rush-hour traffic. Later, they ate so much of the buffet dinner, hardly anyone touched the beautiful cake. And I felt terrible, knowing my father had spent nearly a week''s wages on it. Toward the end of the night, my husband was pulled away from dancing with me to help the best man jump-start the dead battery of his car. Then there was my friend from college. She missed her flight. She missed the ceremony. And she had no hotel room and nowhere to sleep.
She ended up crashing in our room, with my husband and me. On our wedding night!I I''m glad I removed that chapter from A Dream Called Home . My editor was right: It was an absolute downer. But something stayed with me--a realization, or rather, a confirmation. Not only do I remember the bad times more easily, but even positive experiences get corrupted in my brain. Damaged. When I recollect them, they''re not the same anymore. I have no problem following Sandra Cisneros''s writing advice.
Doing the opposite is what''s challenging. I would be hard-pressed to write about things that bring me joy. I''ve been reading about memory lately. How we can change it, reframe it. It''s not lying but finding a new perspective. I would love to reminisce as the Cambridge Dictionary defines it: "to talk or write about past experiences that you remember with pleasure." Not with pain, sorrow, or bitterness, as I often do. But with pleasure, and even gratitude.
According to researchers, remembering happy moments is a great strategy for coping with stress. It reduces cortisol levels and enhances one''s mood, contributing to our overall well-being. It sounds truly lovely, but for some, this is hard to do. I''ve learned that people with depression often get stuck on negative memories. My friend was right. I am the queen of misery! Though never clinically diagnosed, I know I struggle with a deep sadness that I often try to ignore. I''m in a constant state of distress and regret. This rumination, this incessant replay of negativity, is a dark companion to my anxiety.
It steals my joy, making it hard to feel happy or appreciate what I have. My outlook on life is definitely "glass half-empty," making me overly critical of everything and everyone, especially myself. My depression isn''t so bad that I feel I need medication, but it''s always there, hovering, waiting, like a Dementor from Harry Potter , ready to suck happiness from any given moment. I''m not suicidal, but I''ve had dark thoughts, the ones that whisper, If I were to die today, I wouldn''t care . One writes out of one thing only--one''s experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. --JAMES BALDWIN3 All art has the potential to heal, to mend the broken pieces within us. For me, my lifeline has been my writing, which has given me a sense of purpose, crucial for building resilience.
I''ve learned to carefully unhook my heart from the barbed wire of the past, examine the wounds, and find a way to heal. While writing is not a replacement for professional mental health care, it has been instrumental in helping me navigate my feelings. After all, if we don''t express and process our emotions, we begin to repress them, letting them fester inside our bodies and lead us to a dark place where we can either implode or explode. When I wrote The Distance Between Us , the blank page became a safe space where I could lay bare my bitter childhood experiences, reflect on, examine, and lessen their power over me. In those moments of reflection, I saw the silver lining. "Hey, my parents were awful, but a.