I must write my memoir now because…
I must write my memoir now because I am 83 years old and every time I start thinking about it, I start obsessing about it. I am resisting because there are so many different threads of my life to sort it out and I don’t know how to present them. I keep wanting to learn more about how this amazing, to me, life has come to be.
I think, by now, I have made friends with most of my demons. I could learn more about accepting the aging process. I think I’m avoiding a confrontation with what it means to be in an aging body that is often uncooperative. I am also confronting a basic laziness, so I don’t want to commit to publishing a memoir—just to writing it.
One of the lessons I still need to learn is how to not overcommit, so this is a long-term process to organize what is right for me to do. Any deadline is completely self-imposed. I can publish pieces as I go along.
I can’t and don’t want to give up thinking like a writer/teacher with an audience, but I don’t want it to be all for them, it has to be for me. On another level, I want to share this story so finally I may be understood and appreciated for who I am.