Sanders' Quote

"I choose to write about my experiences not because is it mine but because it seems to me a door through which others might pass" (Sanders, 38).
Holy wow! This quote is something that will change the way I write for forever. I have always had a problem with writing about my own experiences, not because I'm dark and twisty but because I never felt that anyone should care to know my personal experiences. I mean I think every writer has an issue with being vulnerable on the page, but this quote helps me rationalize that.
It is fun for me to think about my writing as something that is not about me. It is about me because it happened to me or they are my thoughts but it is not for me. My writing can be used as a function by the reader. They can identify with it because they have been there before, or they can understand how one would get into some situations. It is not about bearing my soul and embarrassing experiences to the world. It is simply about being honest enough that its happened somewhere else before and someone else can relate to it.
It also kind of puts a spin on the thought of how well written work is truly a gift to the people. I'm not thinking a gift in the heaven-choir-sing-songy gift but in the true "wow thank god someones been there before" gift.
I have not had any history of alcoholism in my family but when i think about Sanders' essay about his alcoholic father in relationship to his quote, i feel justified in understanding such a personal piece. I have never been there before and Sanders' is not asking me, as a reader, to have sympathy or even empathy for him. He is just asking me to listen and take from it what i will. Though, i have never been in his situation the piece did truly affect me. It made me think about my mother and how she would frantically clean the house for hours on end. How one time, when i was six, she was determined to get paint off of a door by scraping at it with her fingernails and ended up with a sharp shard of dried paint under her nail that bled for seemingly ever.
It's crazy that i conjured up those thoughts but i was only able to do that because i could relate to Sanders' emotion in the essay.
I want to write about my life so others can pass through a door of my world and hopefully theirs.