I have so many privileges. Being able to write this post about privilege is a privilege. How many women through eternity had occasion to gain literacy, write, or climb high enough on Maslow’s hierarchy to scrape past grinding lives of food, shelter, and childcare? Why should their stories be any less visible than mine? Why?
Absolutely no reason.
I was able to go to school, lots of schools, and then more schools. I learned things, I spent a 40-year midwifery/psychiatric-nurse-practitioner career working hard to help others, and now I write things, and sometimes they get published (like this post). All of this makes up a fine definition of privilege.
Lately, I’ve grown aware of privileges I’m too embarrassed to write about. Which makes me realize: I need to write about them.
It started when I began paying someone to post on social media for me. I rarely got around to posting and, as a writer, social media is one of the sole ways anyone can find you as a writer and read your work.
Yet why should I be able to pay for social media, I gnashed my teeth wondering. I conferred with a couple of my adult kids, knowing they would tell me the raw truth. People pay for social media all the time, they said, so what’s the problem? If I felt guilty, I could donate to a charity like Write Around Portland that “facilitates storytelling in underheard communities.” But truth: I don’t want to give to another charity. I give to many. And I am the sole remaining parent of four kids. My children are my charity. I want to leave something for them when I’m gone.
I author everything my social-media........