RouletteWeekend

I’m just over a month away from my 50th birthday. If I’m blessed enough to make it to 100 years old, that means I’m officially in midlife. Some days I feel it more than others. Sometimes I still feel like I’m in my twenties. If only I had half the knowledge back then to know what today would be like, I’m not sure what kind of advice I would give my younger self.

My younger days were spent giving myself a lot of pep talks and reading a lot of personal development books which back then were called “self-help” and people rolled their eyes whenever you mentioned you were reading one. I remember always turning the spines of my personal development books inward on my bookshelf and leaving the fiction outward facing. I had so many, it just looked like I was trying to be artsy with my books, but really, I didn’t want anyone judging me for trying to be a better person.

I think somewhere deep down, I thought that people expected so little of me that I was afraid they would laugh at my trying to do something more than what I thought they expected of me as a teen mom. I’m not sure what that was exactly, and to this day I don’t know if I met their expectations. And, quite frankly, I don’t really care.

As I aged, I realized that the only people whose opinions of me matter were the ones I gave birth to. They know me the best. They’ve seen me at my worst. And they survived my parenting. I read the books for them. I wanted to be better for them. Not to prove anyone right or wrong, but to make sure that I raised them in as safe and loving an environment as I was physically able to provide for them.

They are all adults now and I’m proud to say that they are all thriving in adulthood. Successful, each in their own ways, and happy(ish) or as happy as maybe people can be given the state of the world these days. And that makes me happy. The knowing that whatever I did back then and however I got from teen mom to middle-aged perimenopausal mom of three adults who have never seen the inside of a jail or a drug rehab center (that I know of as of writing this today) was somewhat of a success.

But I don’t actually know what I did. Mostly because there is a lot I don’t remember. I’ve written about my lack of memory before and how sometimes at the most random times, whether it is a song from my past, a smell, or a phrase, brings me to a place deep in the recesses that I had long forgotten, it all comes rushing back. A tidal wave of memory, a feeling, a sensation and then, just like a wave, it recedes, back to where it has always lived deep inside the ocean of my repression.

I decided that upon my arrival to mid-life, crisis or not, maybe it’s time to examine a life lived. Well-lived? Maybe not as well as some would consider, but from where I sit today, I’m lucky to even still be alive. And I’ll be lucky if I get 50 more years, but assuming that my luck runs out and my kids want to “know” their mother, really know who I was, who I am, what shaped me, what broke me, what made me “this way,” maybe I will leave this puzzle of a memoir in my wake. Little ripples of me for them to wade in whenever they miss me or want to hear my voice.

I imagine every time they read a blog I’ve written, they read it in my voice, the way I read my friends’ writing in their voices. And who knows, maybe I will actually record some of these in my voice for them to hear.

Don’t worry. I’m not terminally ill (that I know of), but we are all dying, slowly, eventually, and I want to leave something that doesn’t get thrown into a box. Something that will outlive me. I have no legacy to leave behind. The only thing I have of value is my words.

With that being said, I’ve decided to attempt to work through Brian Bouldrey’s The Autobiography Box. The instructions in the book make it seem like you should work on it privately and re-work it, re-write it, and organize it, and eventually you will end up with this beautifully written memoir that you can publish and make money on.

If you know me, you know that money has never been a motivator for me. I have quit many a job that paid really well but took my soul. So I’m opting for messy page by page exploration here. I’m pretty sure the only people that read this blog are people who are related to me and/or know me. Half want to know what I’m up to and the other half just want to be nosy and see if I’ve failed yet because I don’t talk to them anymore. And maybe there’s a few strangers who read this because they are genuinely interested (and I’m grateful you are here).

Since I don’t have a “real job” anymore and I don’t plan on getting one in the foreseeable future, my goal is to write one blog per day. I know, I know, you’ve heard this a thousand times before and I promise my intentions were good, my follow through is just sometimes on some bullshit. Like they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. So here is my attempt at another try at consistency. Another try at writing. This time with something like a direction and by that I mean more like one of those beach signposts with 20 different arrows pointing 20 different ways reassuring you that you are only 2200 miles away from Aruba.

But we have to start somewhere, and right now, I’m following Brian Bouldrey’s beacon. Feel free to follow along. Feel free to order the box yourself and do it with me. Who knows what kind of ride this is going to be, but I’m pretty sure the water is probably going to get a little choppy.

See you tomorrow! Surf’s up!