Begging for Support

I've been working on my memoir in the eight years since radiation for my second brain tumor. I believe I have an important story to tell, but it's difficult to see how I'll get it heard (or read). I need help with the storytelling as well as with disability insurance that I had through my district and social security disability insurance. 

Perhaps this will give you some sense of my struggle: according to disability insurance contract, I can make up to $4680 in any month but can never make more and continue to receive benefits. To continue to receive social security disability benefits, I can make money (fifty dollars or  a million dollars have the same effect) in nine different months but can't make any money outside of those months. In case you're not following the details, the rules cancel each other out and mean I can't publish anything without losing one insurance or the other. Ann and I live on this money. I can't risk it.

I've talked with lawyers and advisors for the last couple of months, driving myself in circles. For now, I've decided to keep writing my memoir, write the best piece I can, and then see what I can do. In that spirit, I'm applying for a scholarship to a writing conference this summer. It's a prestigious (and expensive) conference, so this is a long shot, but it's worth a try. 

I've drafted the essay below in an attempt to convince them to pay for me to study with them. Any feedback?

I bowed my head and then raised it to see my face in the bathroom mirror. I looked just like I had the day before: auburn hair parted on the side and curled around my ears, eyes Bluebird blue, a freckled nose, high cheek bones, and laugh lines beginning to form. “I have a brain tumor,” I said to my image. I tried four times, shifting the emphasis from word to word, but the sentence always sounded improbable. The pronouncement’s melodrama made me laugh, but this wasn’t funny. At 43, I had a brain tumor and would soon need to tell friends and family, colleagues and students in my high school English classes.

A decade later, I no longer work, and I live on disability insurance, social security, and my partner’s retirement funds. Writing a blog and crafting a memoir ease my sense of loss. The writing is so important in managing my grief that I lead other writing groups and events for people who struggle: homeless young adults, LGBT elders, and people with dementia.

I have an important story to share, a story of loss and grief in the wake of my two brain tumors, but also a story of gratitude, the gifts of learning to slow down, connecting with other marginalized people, the often amusing absurdities in my life. The story is important, but difficult to share, largely because of restraints from my insurance and social security.

In the past, I have overcome social and financial barriers due to being a Southerner, a woman and a lesbian , and I feel confident that I’ll overcome barriers again. I’ll need help, however.

In addition to disability lawyers and advisors, I need to craft a good story that helps readers understand the losses, gifts, and barriers caused not only by brain tumors and their treatments, but also by social structures. I have never been to Bread Loaf, but my writing teacher says it would be a good support for me.

I need that support. I need to tell this story. You need to hear it.