Richard’s blog: In my first post I wrote that we begin life as the objects of other people’s stories -- stories from our families and our society about who we are and what we will become. We’re fortunate if that story is an insightful novel, where we are a unique and developing personality. Unfortunately, the story we’re handed might be a horror story, a tragedy, or a play with no exit. Sometimes, I learn that a Pongo author believes he is a monster (“The Battle Between Good and Evil”). Sometimes, I learn that a Pongo author believes she is a failure for not saving her family from an impossible dysfunctional state (“Looking for Love”). Sometimes, I learn that a Pongo author is supposed to be a reflection of a parent who is mired in a painful life (“Just Another Girl”).

And what can we do as children to understand and contradict these stories? We are quite helpless. Our strength comes from finding someone who loves us as the person we are.

Without that love, what do we see in the mirror? Who is that person there? The feelings that define us, the richness that is part of our nature, they lose all validity. We are alienated from ourselves. And society’s own image of our race, age, economic status, and gender may also limit and degrade that image of ourselves.

And then the factors of invisibility can become more complicated and convoluted still. Trauma is a frequent event in certain lives – There are children who watch violence at home when Mom is beaten, who suddenly lose a loving grandparent, who see murder in gangs. Trauma can cause a person to separate herself from certain memories and feelings, can build emotional and experiential walls, can cause a person to become a true stranger to herself.

How do we clear the fog from that mirror, how do we learn to see and accept our human selves and our possibilities? One of the ways is to find and believe in a better love. Another way is to understand our true feelings. A third way is to find a voice that creates a clear story, the honest story, of our life and our hurt.

Richard's blog: Pongo has a story, and it's about sharing stories. It's about how people change after creating their stories, and how others are changed in the process of listening to what we say. To look at these processes together tells us something rich and essential about who we are. But to look at the source of our story can also tell us something about the pain in understanding.

Even before we can frame our own story, we are the object of others' stories. Over and over in teen writing, Pongo hears that, perhaps from birth, perhaps covertly, a teen was told that others don't want her to be strong and happy. One burden of this inherited story is that it serves the deeply felt need of a person the child cares deeply about. One burden of this inherited story is that the child feels responsible for a loved one’s pain, and feels unlovable herself. From Pongo, there is Joey's story in "Parents," where his mom gave him the choice when he was seven to live with his aunt. Joey made this choice, and Mom then blamed Joey for rejecting her. She refused to see him again. Joey felt and feels terrible. It is in our nature as children to become others' stories.

Also, before we can frame our own story, we are the object of society's stories, where every social group, including our own, protects its emotional vulnerabilities with a story of who we are. These stories often feature a message of unworthiness about those who are different, a message that masks our own insecurities.

How amazing it has been for me to find Pongo's story -- about how simple it can be to write a transformative vision of ourselves. (How simple it can be, but not easy.) If we write from the heart about the circumstances of our lives, especially the singular moments that affected us deeply, this heartfelt truth has the power to be a new reality. Interestingly, we don't have to glorify ourselves or blame anyone else for our troubles. We just have to speak our own internal truth.

I think this transformative power in writing is the common power of our humanity. It is so powerful that, even when we are hurting, we can recognize the humanity in ourselves. When we write from the heart about our feelings, we see a version of ourselves that can feel better and take more control. We are changed -- both the writer and the listener.