Why Would Anyone Leave a Charmed Life?

It has to do with choosing authentic happiness, as this debut memoir reveals

Aug 16, 2023

Every time I speak the new-book title aloud, I feel the urge to enunciate the first word, like emphasizing italics with your voice. Leaving a Charmed Life, as opposed to living a charmed life.

Why would anyone leave a charmed life? Find out in this astonishing debut memoir by Kadian Grant, Leaving a Charmed Life: A True Story of Choosing Authentic Happiness, launching September 12 from Creative Courage Press.

Now, what you have to know about Kadian to appreciate her book title even more, is that growing up, her nickname was Charm. We first meet four-year-old Charm in the opening pages in a defining moment of happiness on Hellshire Beach in Jamaica.

I stood up and looked around. Everything seemed anointed with a blinding luster. The sand, seawater, fish, rocks, all of it imbued with the horizon’s beauty. I twirled as fast as I could, hoping to disappear into its bigness and traverse the continuum, when I heard “Charm, Charm, Charm” in the distance. The calling of my name jolted me out of blissfulness and steadied me in the sand. I saw my twin brothers running towards me with a gleeful‐ness that expanded my heart. They were having their own bliss, but I knew it was only a modicum of what I had felt.

We follow young Charm’s story from Jamaica where she was raised by her loving great-grandmother (whom she called Mama) to her pink-and-white gingham bedroom in the Bronx, with its closets full of dresses and toys. We crawl under the bed with her where she’s reading Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret by flashlight, partly to escape the unexpected, irrational anger and abuse by her parents, who’d been in America building a better life for their children.

That “better life” looked good to outsiders, but behind closed doors, we come to understand how Charm became a contrasting aspect of the true Kadian, masking her true essence and happiness.

When the anger inside me exploded, a new and unidentifiable modified version of me emerged. Charm had fully manifested due to Ms. Brown’s unkind words and actions, and, without Mama’s help to keep me aligned at my core, my modification completed itself. Charm was more than her family’s moniker—she would become their creation. The first night in the United States created a path that I would walk for many years. A path that mimicked parts of my parents’ lives and the many patterns and beliefs I would take on. Instead of gaining a happy new life, a journey of losses ensued. I lost authentic happiness. I lost Kadian. I lost connection with my soul. When I landed in the United States, I no longer had any embodied horizons to continue watering the seeds planted within me of who I really was. Gradually, my true nature became hidden from me and caged, leaving only a fraction of my true essence. The key to finding my wholeness again was trapped in the depths of my being, in a place where no human had gone nor could go. What could save me now?

“What could save me now?” Kadian asks on page 29. It was one of those questions, she points out, that poet David Whyte calls “questions that have no right to go away.” We watch her journey unfold as she becomes a college graduate, wife to a kind husband, homeowner, prosperous businesswoman, and a mother herself—yet this picture-perfect life is masking the depression, disconnection, and dysfunctional family patterns she wants to eradicate.

Kadian’s answer, in part, was recognizing another soul-deep question she now poses to her readers:

“What good is leaving generational wealth when you and your loved ones are stuck in generational traumas?”

How can I tell you that it’s worth witnessing some harsh scenes in this devastating, beautiful memoir to see how Kadian reclaims her wholeness? How about through the words of one reviewer:

This is a quick read. This is a deep read. It is not an easy read, but a s’hero’s quest should not be. The darkness is real. The work Ms. Grant does is real and the battle we know is uphill and ongoing. When the goal is achieving authentic happiness, is that effort possible? Spoiler alert—the answer is YES! The “why” you know. The “how”, you need to know. […] Fellow warriors, those of us who have battled some of the same demons, or have those they love who may be locked in that battle now, will have a great opportunity to give a gift of importance.
—Sherri Rase, reviewer for Out in Jersey magazine and [Q]onStage

We hope that by diving deep into Kadian’s journey, you will be inspired to break through your own barriers and think about what authentic happiness means to you.

Help Us Celebrate Kadian’s Creative Courage Live

I’m thrilled now to be sharing Kadian Grant’s debut memoir with you and inviting you to help us celebrate this moment. Leaving a Charmed Life launches on September 12! You can pre-order her book now from your favorite bookseller. A variety of buy buttons for the paperback and ebook are listed at KadianGrant.com (as well as a few family photos) or you can go directly to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop. Also, please ask your local library to order a copy for you and your neighbors.

We’re planning a Creative Courage Live conversation on Friday, September 15th about 6:30 pm Eastern Time (where Kadian and I will be meeting in the flesh for the first time on this trip!). Register here to join us via Zoom and get more details.

Join us for Creative Courage Live on Friday, September 15 at 6:30 pm ET for a conversation with Kadian Grant and her publisher, Shelly Francis, to celebrate the launch of Kadian's memoir — click image to register...

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