I was teaching my writing workshop at the big table in the dining room Saturday morning, and in the middle of yet another talk about the need for writers to be honest and authentic and to show their vulnerability. Honest writing is good writing, I said, and a true writer must, I preached, be willing to acknowledge the worst things about him or herself, to own his or her stories.

It was always hard for me, as it is for many writers, to show my vulnerability, and I got a lesson in that this morning. I began to feel sick in the class, I started to sweat and feel nauseous. I am on some new medications, and once in a while, new medications mix with one another in a toxic way, and I get sick.

In the midst of my vulnerability talk, what did I do? Did I say I wasn’t feeling well?  Did I ask the class to go home, they would surely have understood, they are a decent and empathetic bunch. I could even have told my doctor, who was at the  table, that I wasn’t feeling  well, she would have been happy to help me.

I did none of those things. I excused myself for a few minutes and went into the bathroom where I threw up in the sink. I was mildly  panicked about this.

Maria was out walking in the woods, and the sink was a mess. I shouted out to the class that I would be a few minutes, and a couple of them – there is a nurse in the class also –  asked if I was okay. Sure, I said, I’m fine, just be a minute.

I had managed to stop up the drain in the sink, and there was quite a mess in there, I finally got the drain open, the sink drained, and I went and got some paper towels and spray and cleaned the sink up. Then I went and resumed the class, and the same thing happened, at least twice.

By the end of the two-hour class, which I ran while taking deep breaths and sweating, I was losing ground, I did manage to let people go about 15 minutes early. Because I am a diabetic and also someone with heart disease, not being able to eat, vomiting food for  a day or night poses special challenges, there is a great danger both of low blood sugar and also of dehydration, which can get serious for me.

There is a lot of balancing and monitoring going on. Maria came home, took a look at me, and took over. I have no trouble opening up my heart to her.

I lay down after the class and didn’t move all day, except to learn again and again that I cannot hold food down. We cancelled a trip to the Dorset Theater Festival Saturday night, they kindly said we can go on Sunday. I hope I can make it, I am still sick and unable to hold any food down.

I learned, of course, that I must practice what I preach. That is not always easy.

Showing vulnerability is not just a lesson in writing class, it is, in my mind, essential to being a spiritual and fully formed adult human being. Thinking back on it, I couldn’t bear for my students to see me sick and sweating and unable to keep any food down, which is to say vomiting again and again. Even though they show their vulnerability to me over and over again, i couldn’t show them mine.

Several of them messaged me right a way after the class and asked if I was okay. Sure, I said, I’m fine. My friend Jackie, the nurse, came into the living room after the class to ask if I was all right. She knows the danger of dehydration for diabetics.

Maria is asleep now and I snuck downstairs to write this,  and got sick again.

I must be on the mend of I can write about it.

I still can’t keep any food down and I’m taking a bunch of diabetic paraphernalia up to bed – meters, strips, glucose tablets, bottled water –  upstairs in case I need them.

The point of all this is not my temporary sickness – I will be okay shortly, this has happened before, there is no need to wish me a speedy recovery, I’m on it.

The point of this that we need to own our stories, writers or non-writers (especially writers.) Telling my class I was sick would have been embarrassing and awkward – no teacher wants to do that – but not nearly as difficult as hiding our stories or running from them. I spent much of a lifetime doing that. Under pressure, I see I can revert to form. Ego is a powerful force in one’s life.

Rather than give the class the chance to help me and understand me, I shut them out of it and reverted to denial and the preservation of a false facade. I didn’t take my own advice. Did I think they would all quit the class if I was too human?

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light,” wrote Brene Brown.

I don’t need to be a Superhero to be a teacher. I don’t need to be invincible. Human beings are material things, easily torn, not always easily mended.

I tell my writing students all the time that when people open their hearts, and let people in,  their writing will get better, and they will get better. For many of them, that is happening.

This is what I do on my blog, I open my heart and tell my story. It makes me better. It’s what I should have done today.

I think some of the best lessons in my life have come from my own many failings..