One of my children has been saying he’s a “bad writer” and that he doesn’t like writing. Writing is such a complex, emotional, practically an organ that some of us manage to donate upon graduating school, so I tread carefully on this. Because, really, sometimes I tell myself I’m a bad writer, and often I don’t like writing (particularly the rewriting part, which is about 80% of the writing I do).

He told me yesterday, in an impromptu conversation held at the beach (as most potentially life-altering conversations are) that he wants to write his truths, his story, because that’s the assignment at school, but he doesn’t want to write his whole truth, his real truth, because it’s going to be judged on some level, and possibly shared. So he picks the stories of his life that aren’t the most profound, most revealing, most forefront. Meaning he doesn’t pick the…