Me & My Shadow

Shadows and Secrets and Memoirs... Oh My!

We all know that even under the best of circumstances, spending the holidays in close quarters with one’s extended family can be stressful. But I’ll be honest. This year, I felt extra nervous about going to my childhood home for Christmas.

It’s true that last year, everyone already knew that I’d written a memoir about open marriage, but “January 2024” was still so far away that the appearance of this book on actual shelves felt like a distant dream. Now, though, there’s no sugar-coating it. This book is coming. Soon. And of the twelve people gathered around the table on Christmas Eve, precisely half of them had already read an advanced copy. (If you are developing a case of sympathy hives at the thought of being seated at such a table, I thank you for your concern.)

My mother’s older sister, Alice, is one of those family members who has not yet read my memoir, but she knows she’s in it. Aunt Anne (as I call her in the book, even though she told me I could use her real name) is in just one scene. At a restaurant in Boston over twenty years ago, my aunt revealed to me a family secret, one which was central to the story that I tell in MORE. (I’d tell you now, but it’s… you know… secret.)

My family is not unique in its secret-keeping. The writer Dani Shapiro, who brilliantly wrote about her own family’s secret in her memoir Inheritance, now interviews dozens of people—mostly writers—on her podcast Family Secrets. (If you haven’t tuned in before, I highly recommend it.) Shapiro talks about the corrosive effects of a secret on a family—both those who keep it and those from whom it is withheld. Because of course, secrets of all different types generally have one thing in common: a root core of shame.

A few weeks ago, I went to The Kripalu Center to do a writing retreat with Dani Shapiro herself. There, I met Jess, a Jungian counselor who is working on a book about the power of engaging with our shadow side. As we ate cauliflower soup and BBQ jackfruit in the Kripalu cafeteria, Jess told me about her work, and how her own personal history got her interested in Jung. “I was the shadow in my family,” she said.

As I sat with my aunt Alice on Christmas Eve, I remembered Jess’s words.

When I was a kid, I loved going to my aunt Alice’s house. It was just a few blocks away but felt like an entirely different world. There, I could eat unlimited Oreos and Doritos, foods we’d never find in our own house. Television was similarly unrestricted in terms of both quantity and quality. And unlike my mother, who never cursed and rarely drank, Alice was the only adult in my life who swore freely in front of me, and hers was the first alcohol cabinet I ever surreptitiously raided.

But not once did I ever fear Alice’s judgment or anger or even the slightest twinge of disappointment.

In other words, at Alice’s house—and with Alice herself—guilty pleasures weren’t guilt-inducing at all. And it was on Christmas Eve that I finally understood why this was so. Why my imperfections—the inner me I kept hidden—has often found solace with my aunt Alice. It is because Alice served as the shadow to my mother’s “good-girl” perfectionism. With Alice’s shadow by my side, my own “shadow self” felt safe.

And so, in my parents’ living room on Christmas Eve, as Alice fretted somewhat jokingly that her blabbing would now be immortalized in print, I said something to her I hadn’t thought of before: “I actually need to thank you, Alice. You’re the only one who would ever have told me the truth.” After all, revealing that which tries to remain hidden is often the job of family shadows.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe my family is moving away from hidden shadows and the need for keeping secrets.

For years, my sister Carey and I assumed the same dynamic as Alice and my mother. It is only quite recently—partly because of conversations we had after Carey read MORE—that we’ve discovered the freedom of shedding our roles. She doesn’t have to be the “bad girl” anymore, and I don’t have to be the “good girl.” Both of us are both. Or maybe we are neither. Because of this discovery, our relationship has healed in profound ways.

And so it is my hope—not just for my own family, but for others as well—that MORE will push the needle just a smidge towards truth. That more of us will honestly face our own shadowy selves. And that we can accept more of the shadow in one another.

Wishing you all peace & love with a side of shadow. See you in 2024.