My Favorite Quotes from 'Becoming' by Laura Jane Williams

Photo by Alisa Anton

I need to talk about this book, but I don't want to do a boring book review.  We already know that this book is great (judging by all the five star reviews on Amazon); I don't need to tell you that.

But I need to talk about this book.  How much I love it, how much I need everyone to read it, how much I want to write a book like that someday.

I'm going to share with you my favorite quotes that Laura Jane Williams blessed us within Becoming.  All the quotes that I read and was like "yes, me too, thank God someone else feels the same way".

My copy, which I bought the first day it came out in paperback, is now full of pink highlighter.  It's rather aesthetically pleasing paired with the pink cover.

Allow me to be human, too.  Allow me to be prejudiced. Unreliable.  Subjective.

The book hasn't even started yet (this is from the Author's Note).  I think the reason memoirs get a bad rep is because people want them to be 100% unbiased and be so airtight it could face a courtroom.  But that's not the point of memoirs, is it?  The point is for the author to tell their version of the story, however that may unfold.

I'm proud of who I am but I'm well aware that Gwen is more palatable - she's smoother round the edges.  Less opinionated...By comparison I'm a blonde, loud, hurricane of a mess, constantly asking why and demanding who and talktalktalking.  I take up so much more space.

Do you ever feel like you're too big for the world?  Too prickly, always bumping into stuff, whether it be metaphorically or that time you knocked over all the trash at Starbucks and everyone stopped to look at you.  We probably all feel like we take up too much space at times (all the time), but we have to remember that we deserve all the space we occupy, and then some.

I was drained, and didn't want to be strong, or brave, and to go another step alone, best face forward, terrified me.  I was so goddamn angry.  Full of hurt that I didn't have anywhere to put.

Aka my entire teenage years.  (And maybe even present day but let's not talk about that.)

and partly because it felt good, reassuring, to remember I could be in control.  It was always about the fucking control.

Retweet.

I suppose it felt like the unabashed shagging had been worth it, if I got a story out of it.

This is how I approach a lot of things.  Not necessarily shagging, but experiences in general.  I'll be unsure about a situation and think to myself "hmm, might as well. I may get a funny story out of this".  Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad, so I'm trying to find the balance.

I needed something else.  Needed to feel a different way.  I was done being detached and holding back.  I wanted love.  I wanted love to wash over me and heal me and be me and become me.  I wanted to love myself...Wholly, for better and for worse, without restriction or excuse, I wanted to love myself.

<3

'I've literally never known anyone give themselves as a hard a time as you do.'

Same, honestly.

What if I act from a place where I believe I am worthy of this boy?...Maybe you'll get a story out of that, too.  Maybe you'll get a story out of already being a better person than you thought.

An answer to the possibly self-destructive reasoning behind "hmm maybe I'll get a story out of this".

I so long to be the girl who understands who and what she is, what she stands for, is reliable and constant.  But that is absolutely not me...I'm forever unfinished business.  Isn't that exhausting?

IT IS EXHAUSTING.

Nobody else gets to decide what my history is.  I got hurt, like a bagillion other people have been, and I had to figure out my shit, like a bagillion other people have.  That's not sickening and unworthy.  That's human.

Thank you, Laura Jane Williams, for telling your story.

I encourage everyone to go read her story and when you're done with Becoming, write about your own.