Memoir & Personal Narratives Sample

Memoir Sample: No Welcome Wagon for Fiadh

One of the last times I really tried, I misread everything. I was sitting at a dinner, laughing at the right jokes, nodding in all the right places. It felt good—for once, I thought I was in.

But then the moment shifted, like a sharp gust of wind slamming a door shut.

One woman leaned closer to another, whispered something, and suddenly, the whole group was a fortress I wasn’t invited into.

My stomach tightened. Did I say something wrong? Was I too much? The conversation carried on, but now it curved around me, deliberate in its exclusion.

It wasn’t just that moment. It was every moment like it—the ones where I felt like I was right on the edge of belonging, only to be reminded I wasn’t quite enough. Not quite the right kind of person.

Not quite part of the unspoken club. I started wondering, Is it me? Am I just bad at people?

I flashed back to being a kid—barefoot, climbing trees, twigs tangled in my hair, not caring about fitting in because the woods didn’t care either.

Back then, I never felt wrong. Just wild and free and exactly as I was meant to be. But somewhere along the way, I had started to believe I had to change to belong.

The real turning point wasn’t some grand epiphany. It was small—a shift. An older woman, someone who had long since stopped caring what people thought, said it straight to my face over coffee one day.

"You keep trying to be what they want instead of being who you are."

She stirred her tea lazily, like she hadn’t just handed me a life-altering revelation.

I blinked. "But if I just—"

She shook her head. "It won’t work. People like that? They smell it on you. The trying. They eat that kind of desperation for sport. Stop giving them a meal."

That was it. That was the moment I realized—I’d been exhausting myself for people who were never going to accept me. The people I belonged with wouldn’t need me to prove anything.

On my way out of the café, an older man—someone I’d never met—gave me a nod. Not the polite, distant kind, but the kind that says, ‘I see you.’ It was small, almost meaningless, but for some reason, I held onto it.