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So I know TED is about

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a lot of things that are big,

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but I want to talk to you about
something very small,

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so small it's a single word.

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The word is "misfit."

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It's one of my favorite words,
because it's so literal.

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I mean, it's a person who sort of
missed fitting in,

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or a person who fits in badly,

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or this, a person, who is poorly
adapted to new situations

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and environments.

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I'm a card-carrying misfit,

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and I'm here for the other
misfits in the room,

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because I'm never the only one.

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I'm going to tell you a misfit story.

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Somewhere in my early 30s,

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the dream of becoming a writer
came right to my doorstep.

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Actually, it came to my mailbox
in the form of a letter

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that said I'd won a giant literary prize
for a short story I'd written.

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The short story was about my life
as a competitive swimmer,

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and about my crappy home life,

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and a little bit about how grief
and loss can make you insane.

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The prize was a trip to New York City
to meet big-time editors and agents

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and other authors.

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So kind of it was the wannabe
writer's dream, right?

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You know what I did the day
the letter came to my house?

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Because I'm me,

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I put the letter on my kitchen table,

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I poured myself a giant glass of vodka

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with ice and lime,

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and I sat there in my underwear

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for an entire day

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just staring at the letter.

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I was thinking about all the ways
I'd already screwed my life up.

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Who the hell was I to go to New York City

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and pretend to be a writer?

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Who was I?

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I'll tell you.

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I was a misfit.

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Like legions of other children,

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I came from an abusive household

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that I narrowly escaped with my life.

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I already had two epically
failed marriages underneath my belt.

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I'd flunked out of college,
not once but twice,

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and maybe even a third time
that I'm not going to tell you about.

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(Laughter)

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And I'd done an episode
of rehab for drug use.

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And I'd had two lovely
staycations in jail.

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So I'm on the right stage.

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(Laughter)

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But the real reason, I think,
I was a misfit,

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is that my daughter died
the day she was born,

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and I hadn't figured out
how to live with that story yet.

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After my daughter died,
I also spent a long time homeless,

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living under an overpass

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in a kind of profound state
of zombie grief and loss

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that some of us encounter along the way,

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maybe all of us, if you live long enough.

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You know, homeless people are some
of our most heroic misfits,

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because they start out as us.

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So you see, I'd missed fitting in
to just about every category out there:

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daughter, wife, mother, scholar.

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And the dream of being a writer

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was really kind of like a small,
sad stone in my throat.

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It was pretty much in spite of myself
that I got on that plane

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and flew to New York City,

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where the writers are.

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Fellow misfits, I can almost
see your heads glowing.

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I can pick you out of a room.

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At first, you would've loved it.

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You got to choose the three
famous writers you wanted to meet,

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and these guys went
and found them for you.

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You got set up at the Gramercy Park Hotel,

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where you got to drink Scotch
late in the night

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with cool, smart, swank people,

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and you got to pretend you were cool

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and smart and swank too.

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And you got to meet a bunch
of editors and authors and agents

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at very, very fancy lunches and dinners.

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Ask me how fancy.

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I'm making a confession:

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I stole three linen napkins

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from three different restaurants

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and I shoved a menu down my pants.

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(Laughter)

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I just wanted some keepsakes
so that when I got home,

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I could believe it had really
happened to me.

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You know?

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The three writers I wanted to meet

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were Carol Maso, Lynne Tillman,
and Peggy Phelan.

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These were not famous,
best-selling authors,

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but to me, they were women writer titans.

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Carole Maso wrote the book
that later became my art bible.

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Lynne Tillman gave me permission
to believe that there was a chance

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my stories could be part of the world.

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And Peggy Phelan reminded me

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that maybe my brains

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could be more important than my boobs.

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They weren't mainstream women writers,

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but they were cutting a path

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through the mainstream
with their body stories,

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I like to think kind of the way
water cut the Grand Canyon.

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It nearly killed me with joy
to hang out with these three

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over 50-year old women writers,

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and the reason it nearly
killed me with joy

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is that I'd never known a joy like that.

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I'd never been in a room like that.

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My mother never went to college,

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and my creative career to that point

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was a sort of small, sad, stillborn thing.

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So kind of in those first nights
in New York I wanted to die there.

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I was just like, "Kill me now.
I'm good. This is beautiful."

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Some of you in the room will understand

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what happened next.

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First they took me to the offices
of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
was like my mega dream press.

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I mean, T.S. Eliot and Flannery O'Connor
were published there.

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The main editor guy sat me down
and talked to me for a long time

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trying to convince me I had a book in me
about my life as a swimmer.

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You know, like, a memoir.

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The whole time he was talking to me,
I sat there smiling and nodding

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like a numb idiot

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with my arms crossed over my chest

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while nothing, nothing, nothing
came out of my throat.

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So in the end,
he patted me on the shoulder

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like a swim coach might,

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and he wished me luck,

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and he gave me some free books,

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and he showed me out the door.

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Next they took me to the offices
of W.W. Norton,

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where I was pretty sure
I would be escorted from the building

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just for wearing Doc Martens.

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But that didn't happen.

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Being at the Norton offices
felt like reaching up into the night sky

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and touching the moon while the stars

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stitched your name across the cosmos.

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I mean, that's how big
a deal it was to me.

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You get it?

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Their lead editor, Carol Houck Smith,

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leaned over right in my face
with these beady, bright, fierce eyes

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and said, "Well send me something
then, immediately!"

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See, now most people,
especially TED people

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would have run to the mailbox.

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It took me over a decade

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to even imagine
putting something in an envelope

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and licking a stamp.

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On the last night,

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I gave a big reading

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at the National Poetry Club.

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And at the end of the reading,

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Katharine Kidde, of Kidde, Hoyt
and Picard literary agency,

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walked straight up to me and shook my hand

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and offered me representation,
like, on the spot.

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I stood there and I kind of went deaf.

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Has this ever happened to you?

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And I almost started crying

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because all the people in the room
were dressed so beautifully,

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and all that came out of my mouth
was, "I don't know.

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I have to think about it."

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And she said, "Okay then,"
and walked away.

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All those open hands out to me,
that small, sad stone in my throat.

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You see, I'm trying to tell you something
about people like me.

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Misfit people, we don't know always know
how to hope or say yes

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or choose the big thing

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even when it's right in front of us.

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It's a shame we carry.

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It's the shame of wanting something good.

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It's the shame of feeling something good.

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It's the shame of not really believing
we deserve to be in the room

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with the people we admire.

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If I could, I'd go back
and I'd coach myself.

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I'd be exactly like those
over 50-year old women who helped me.

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I'd teach myself how to want things,
how to stand up,

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how to ask for them.

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I'd say, "You! Yeah, you!
You belong in the room too."

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The radiance falls on all of us,

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and we are nothing without each other.

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Instead, I flew back to Oregon,

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and as I watched the evergreens and rain
come back into view,

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I just drank many tiny bottles
of airplane feel sorry for yourself.

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I thought about how, if I was a writer,
I was some kind of misfit writer.

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What I'm saying is, I flew back to Oregon
without a book deal,

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without an agent, and with only
a head full and heart full of memories

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of having sat so near

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the beautiful writers.

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Memory was the only prize
I allowed myself.

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And yet, at home in the dark,

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back in my underwear,

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I could still hear their voices.

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They said, "Don't listen to anyone
who tries to get you to shut up

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or change your story."

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They said, "Give voice to the story
only you know how to tell."

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They said, "Sometimes telling the story

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is the thing that saves your life."

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Now I am, as you can see,
the woman over 50,

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and I'm a writer,

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and I'm a mother,

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and I became a teacher.

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Guess who my favorite students are?

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Although it didn't happen the day
that dream letter came through my mailbox,

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I did write a memoir

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00:10:52,266 --> 00:10:54,889
called "The Chronology of Water."

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In it are the stories of how many times
I've had to reinvent a self

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from the ruins of my choices,

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the stories of how my seeming failures
were really just weird-ass portals

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to something beautiful.

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All I had to do was give voice
to the story.

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There's a myth in most cultures
about following your dreams.

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00:11:20,664 --> 00:11:23,334
It's called the Hero's Journey.

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00:11:23,334 --> 00:11:26,283
But I prefer a different myth

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00:11:26,283 --> 00:11:29,232
that's slightly to the side of that,
or underneath it.

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00:11:29,232 --> 00:11:32,041
It's called the Misfit's Myth,

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00:11:32,041 --> 00:11:33,806
and it goes like this:

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00:11:33,806 --> 00:11:36,198
even at the moment of your failure,

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00:11:36,198 --> 00:11:39,077
right then, you are beautiful.

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You don't know it yet, but you
have the ability to reinvent yourself

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00:11:44,232 --> 00:11:45,764
endlessly.

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00:11:45,764 --> 00:11:47,901
That's your beauty.

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You can be a drunk,

219
00:11:50,524 --> 00:11:53,311
you can be a survivor of abuse,

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00:11:53,311 --> 00:11:54,495
you can be an ex-con,

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00:11:54,495 --> 00:11:55,168
you can be a homeless person,

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you can lose all your money
or your job or your husband

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or your wife, or the worst thing of all,

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a child.

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00:12:02,065 --> 00:12:04,224
You can even lose your marbles.

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00:12:04,224 --> 00:12:09,007
You can be standing dead center
in the middle of your failure

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and still, I'm only here to tell you,

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you are so beautiful.

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Your story deserves to be heard,

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because you, you rare
and phenomenal misfit,

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you new species,

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are the only one in the room

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who can tell the story

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00:12:26,376 --> 00:12:29,766
the way only you would.

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And I'd be listening.

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Thank you.

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00:12:34,457 --> 00:12:40,099
(Applause)