Life can be a lot like writing. We remember and learn as we go. We continually revise and edit our visions of ourselves and others. We learn from past experiences and adjust as needed.
Right now I am getting ready to edit the first chapter of my memoir. I am curious to look back at the person I was when I wrote it. I am interested to see how I have changed and grown. I actually wonder if I will read the whole thing and toss out half. That is how it often goes. We think we know something, feel certain and then look back on it and wonder what the hell we were thinking.
I hope to find some perspective in looking back. I think that my life continues to improve but on days like today, I need a little reminder.
I am a little frustrated. I slept poorly, plagued by nightmares that reoccured each time I slept. I feel sick. It started on the weekend with achy joints and by Monday, progressed to vertigo. I felt better yesterday morning after loads of sleep but by afternoon, I felt exhausted and nauseous again. Today I feel the same although I slept about twelve hours. I wanted to go to yoga but right now it seems like too much. A little of my old guilt is creeping in and that voice in the back of my head is telling me I should be doing something even though I have nothing I need to do.
This is where I revise. I rewrite the script that is filled with guilt to one of acceptance and gratitude. I accept that some days I must just rest and recuperate, even if it is inconvenient. I am grateful because I'm not completely incapacitated. I am grateful because I don't have any commitments and there is no better time to just rest.
Now I will go and edit my manuscript and perhaps I will learn a little more about myself and my journey in the process.
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4 comments:
When I look at something I wrote 30 years ago, and look at something I wrote last week, I am amazed at the differences. A 20-something's view against a 50-something's view. Such is life as we grow.
When I wrote about a particularly troubling period in my life, it was very hard to stay on task because I was transported back to that time in my life and sometimes, it wasn't pretty. Ok, most times it wasn't pretty.
Coming from an abusive home and having been in many, many foster homes in my youth, the memoir will go unpublished, because no one would like to read it. It is old news to all my friends and unless I become famous someday, it will be just another one of "those stories."
It is enough for me that it is "down on paper." And that's where I leave it.
I hope you can get through the task to the words "the end." Because it is very, very hard to do.
Take care,
Anne
Good insights Anne. I wonder if I will ever get to the words "the end" as well. This may be all about the process although when I edited yesterday, I found parts of my chapter that I think are solid and that readers may enjoy. I think my next step is to make the revisions and send the chapter to a few people to see if they think the book is worthy of pursuing.
I have to go with Anne on this one. Even if you don't get it published it will still be good to have it written down somewhere.
I think the writing process is not so much about what others might think about it but what do you get out of the act. A long time ago I would write just to write. I did get one poem published and a few short stories in the local paper. The goal was only to put pen to paper and see how I felt at the end of the exercise. Usually I felt pretty damned good about it.
I have never seen my life as interesting enough to myself to write down so I will stick to my little fantasy (i.e. Tolkien type) stories. Some good, some bad but in the end satisfying to me.
Keep writing. I hear focus is good for our kind. One more word and I'm done for today. Y - O - G - A
Mike. Thanks for the encouragement. I hear you on the word yoga-- it's my life.
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