I emailed my completed manuscript—a narrative nonfiction about how I learned to give my all without losing everything—to several friends I trusted would appreciate the premise. The people I sent it to read a lot of books (some are also authors), and after weeks of tinkering with words and phrases, I needed to know if the trees I kept meticulously manicuring were still in the same forest, so to speak.
Sending your writing to people is nerve-wracking, especially when what you’ve written is so personal. It’s like dropping your toddler off with a new sitter. You know you’ve gone over all the important stuff, but you still worry about handling. Every few minutes, you consider taking your baby back.
My husband was one of the first readers to finish. He got through the whole thing in one day, and when I asked whether my intent was clear, he announced, “I don’t think you know what kind of book you wrote.”
Instead of challenging him (because, Sir, I wrote it?), I chuckled, then said, “Well, you tell me. What kind of book did I write?”
“This is a leadership book,” he responded definitively.
To be honest, that’s not how I think of the book at all, but I found it fascinating that he saw it that way. As more early reactions came in, his assessment began to make sense. Readers are finding themselves in the pages of what feels to me like a Tara manifesto, resonating with various stories and lessons based on their own life paths. The process is helping me understand not only what stands out, but also how people who weren’t “in the room where it happened” interpret the very personal experiences I chose to share.
The texts arrive in waves. Over Sunday breakfast, while John and I discussed everything from a cratering stock market to the cooler-than-average Texas temperatures, my phone chimed. I instinctively picked it up, and saw a gorgeous note from another early reader:
“I started your book yesterday evening and can’t stop. I find myself reading, crying, laughing, and nodding my head in complete understanding…I just want you to know that your book makes me feel seen & heard. It’s like a big warm hug on a cold, rainy, desolate, hopeless day…”
There was more to it, mostly about the similarities between her life story and mine—childhood trauma, adult heartache, and stubborn people-pleasing behaviors that have threatened to take each of us out over the years. It was everything a painfully introspective writer hopes to hear after giving birth to the reconciliation of her own life.
I read the text to John. Eyes brimming with fat tears, I told him what I’ve been praying for since the day I forwarded the full manuscript to my agent, which is that this book liberates millions of women who’ve been conditioned to believe the ultimate lie. The ultimate lie is that we primarily exist for others’ purposes—that our value is linked to how useful we are to someone (or something) else.
We instinctively deny it, but many of us have internalized this idea. If a credible source doesn’t deem us valuable with a job or an award or a yes or even a “like,” we may feel less capable, less lovable, less worth knowing and celebrating. I shared with John how this covert insistence on being validated as “important” and “successful” and “together” is, for many women but especially for Black and brown women, an added burden on an already burdened existence.
Personally, I’ve wanted to let go of this crushing pressure for years. There have been moments of reprieve, like an emotional reset after a good therapy session, or a boost of confidence on the other side of a passionate pep talk. But for me, it is only the act of creating—the thinking and feeling and framing and writing and perfecting—that snatches the weighty mass of insecurity and neediness from my grasp, tosses it to the floor, and stomps the sting out of it.
So far, it seems the freedom I found in writing this book is jumping off the page into the hearts of minds of those reading it. Knowing this feels warm and light and easy. It feels like summer.
Later that same Sunday, while chopping vegetables for dinner, I pressed play on the audio version of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van der Kolk M.D. Early in the book, the author writes about “Cover Stories,” described as condensed (and palatable) versions of a person’s life arc that gives others enough information to loosely understand their current circumstance, but not enough to fully understand the person living in it. I began reflecting on what a powerful construct this is.
We all have a cover story. My cover story is about a successful founder turned CEO who thinks deep thoughts and says smart things and keeps calm while carrying on. But that’s a flimsy analysis. It’s more true that I am a walking dichotomy—brave and anxious, open-hearted and private, ready for anything and simultaneously selective about how I spend my energy. And if my recent conversations with “successful” people are any indication, I bet you can say the same.
What would it mean to us to lay our cover stories down? Not for needless exposure, but as a permission-granting exercise—a way to be more present and content and honest. A way to feel your feelings and think your thoughts and be where you want to be, instead of where people think you belong. A way to have the conversations that interest you and further the causes you believe in, apart from external expectations and validation?
What would it mean to not need a cover story at all?
I am wondering this today, and am intrigued by the questions that keep surfacing. I don’t have an answer yet, but I can tell you one thing:
It feels like freedom.
Tara Jaye Frank