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So i know ted is about a lot of things
That are big
But i want to talk to about something very small
So small
It's a single word
The word is missed it
It
It's one of my favorite words
Because it's so literal
I mean it's a person you sort of missed fitting in or a person who fits in badly
Or this a person who is poorly adapted to new situations asvirements
I'm a card carrying misfit
And i'm here for the other misss fits in the room
Because i'm never the only one
I'm going to tell you a misfit story
Somewhere in my early thirbies
The dream of becoming a writer came right to my doorstep
Actually it came to my mailbox in the form of a letter
That said i'd won a giant literary price for a short story
I written ten the short story was about my life as a competitive swimmer
And about my crappy homelife and a little bit about how grief and loss can make you insane
The price was a trip to new york city
To meet big time editors and agents and other authors
So kindit was the one to be writers
Dream right you know what i did the day the letter came to my house
Because i mean i put the letter on my kitchen table
I poured myself a giant glass of vacca with ice and line
And i sat there in my underwear for an entire day just staring at the letter
I was thinking about all the ways
I'd already screwed my life up
Who the hell was i to go to new york city
And pretend to be a writer
Who was i
I'll tell it
I was missed it
It like legions of other children
I came from an abusive household
That i narrely escaped with my life
I already had two epically failed marriages underneath my belt
I'd flunkked out of college
Not once but twice
And maybe even a third time that i'm not going to tell you about
And i've done an episode of rehab for drug use
And i had two lovely stay acations in jail
So i'm on the right stage
But the real reason
I think i was a misfit
Is that my daughter died the day she was born
And i hadn't figured out how to live with that story yet after my daughter died
I also spent a long time homeless living under an overpass in a kind of profound state of zombie
Grief and loss
That some of us encounter along the way
Maybe all of us if you live long enough
You know homeless people are some of our most heroic misfit
Because they start out as us
So you see i'd missed fitting in to just about every category out there
Daughter
Wife
Mother
Scholar and the dream of being a writer was really kind like a small sad stone in my throat
It was pretty much inspite of myself
That i got on that ple and include a new york city
Where the writers are fellow miss it
Its i can almost see your heads grolowing
I can tuck you out of a room at first you would have loved it
You got to choose the three famous writers
You wanted to me in these guys went and fthem for for you
You got set up at the grammar acy park hotel
Where you got to drink scotch late in the night with cool
Smart
Swank people
And you got to pretend you were cool and smart and swank too
And you got to meet a bunch of editors and authors and enents at very very anancy ununches dindiners ask me how fancy
I'm making a confession
I stole three lydon napkins from three different restaurants
And i shout the menu down my pants
I just wanted some keep sick
So that when i got home
I could believe
It had really happened to me
You know the three writers i wanted to meet where karell
Masel
Lintlman and pegge failing these were not famous best selling authors
But to me
They were women writer
Tightenkcarol
Maaso wrote the book that later became my art bible lin tillman gave me permission to believe that there was a chance
My stories could be part of the world and peggie failing reminded me that maybe my brains could be more important than my boos
They were mainstream women writers
But they were cutting a path through the mainstream with their body stories
I like to think kind of the way water cut the grand canyon
It nearly killed me with joy to hang out with these three over fifty year old women writers and the reason
It nearly killed me with joy
Is that i'd never known a joy
Like that i've never been in a room
Like that my mother never went to college and my creative career to that point was a sort of small sad still born thing so kind of in those first nights in new york
I wanted to die there i was just like kill me
Now i'm good
This is beautiful
Some of you in the room will understand what happen
Next first they took me to the offices of farrstrouzson jeru
Feroustrouwson
Jeru was like my mega dream press
I mean ts selliet and flanenario conner were published there the main editor guy sat me down and talk to me for a long time
Trying to convince me
I had a book in me about my life as a swimmer
You know like a memo
So the whole time he was talking to me
I sat they're smiling and not like a nuam idiot as my arms price ss over my chest
Well
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing came out of my throat
So in the end
He patdred me on the shoulder like a swim coach mand and wisshed luck
And he gave me some free books
And he showed me out the door
Next they took me to the offices of ww norton
Where i was pretty sure
I'd be escorted from the building just for wearying dark martains
But that didn't happen being at the norteroffoffices
Felt like reaching up into the night sky and touching the moon
While the stars stiched your name across the cosmos
I mean that's how big a deal
It was to meet you get it their league editor caroll hook smith leaned over wrped my face with these bey bright fiercize
And said well send me something
Then immediately see now most people especially ted ted people when to run to the menilbox
Right it took me over a decade to even imagine putting something in an envelope
And leaking a stamp on the last night
I gave a big reading at the national poetry club
And at the end of the reading cathering kitty of kkitty hoite and per cred literary agency walks straight up to me
And shook my hand
And offered me representation like on the spot i stood there
And i kind of went death
There's this ever ver happened you and i all sorted crying
Because all the people in the room were addressed so beautifully
And all that came out of my mouth was i don't know
I have to think about it
And she said okay
Then and walked away
All those open hands out to me
That small soundstone in my throat
You see
I'm trying to tell you something about people
Like me misfit people
We don't always know how a hope
Or say yes
Or choose the big thing
Even when it's right in front of us
It's a shame we carry
It's a shame of wanting something good
It's a shame of feeling something good
It's the shame of not really believing we deserve to be in the room with the people we admire
没有 没的 没有
If i could i'd go back
And i coach myself
I feel exactly like those over fifty year old women who helped me
I teach myself how to want things
How to stand up
How to asked for them
And say you yeah you
You belong in the room too
The radiance falls on all of us
And we earn nothing without each other instead
I flew back to og in
And as i watched the ever greens and rain come back into view
I just straint many tiny bottles of airplane
Feel sorry for yourself
I thought about half i was a writer
I was some kind of misfit writer
What i'm saying as i flew back to organ without a book deal without an agent
And with only a headful and heartful mememories hahaving sat so near the beautiful writers
Memory was the only price
I allowed myself and yet at home in the dark
Back in my underwear
I could still hear their voices
They said don't listen to anyone who tries to get you to shut up or change your story
They said give voice to the story
Only you know how to tell
They said sometimes telling the story is the thing that saves your life
Now i am as you can see the woman over fifty
And i'm a writer
And i'm a mother
And i became a teacher
Guess who my favorite students are
Although it didn't happen the day that dream letter came through my mailbox
I did write a memorr called the chonology of water in it are the stories of how many times i've had to reinvent itself from the ruins of my choices
The stories of how my seeming failures were really just weird asportortals to something beautiful
All i had to do
Was give voice to the story
There's a myth in most cultures about following your dreams
It's called the heroes journey
But i prefer a different mythth that's slightly to the side of that or underneath it
It's called the mimisfit smith
And it goes like this
Even at the moment of your failure right
Then you are beautiful
You don't know it yet
But you have the ability to reinvent yourself
Endlessly that's your beauty
You can be a drunk
You can be a survivor of abuse
You can be an x con
You can be a homeless person
You can lose all your money or your job or your husband or your wife or the worst thing of all a child
You can even lose your marbles
You will be standing debt center in the middle of your failure
And still i'm only here to tell you
You are so beautiful
Your story deserves to be heard
Because you
You rare and phenomenal misfit
You new species are the only one in the room
Who can tell the story
The way only you would
And i'd be listening
Thank you
