I’m happy to share with you all one of the pieces a client wrote in my senior memoir writing class. I anticipate you’ll all enjoy this as much as I did.
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One Chapter At A Time
Life is like a book. You live it one chapter at a time. At present, I am living chapter seventy in my book. I have a zest for life. I take the good with the bad and try to make the best of it always wondering what comes next. How a person lives their life will determine how good the book will turn out.
When I was a little girl, I often wondered what my future life would be like. My parents were divorced and my sister and I lived in foster homes. We moved every couple of years or so. My father wanted us to remain together. This started with chapter three and continued until chapter eighteen. I always lived with an eye on, “what comes next?” My sister was only fifteen months older than I. We were treated almost like twins wherever we were living. We were in the same grade from second on as my sister was kept back a year. I had almost finished chapter eleven when my father died. It was only six days before the start of chapter twelve. Chapter seventeen of my life was saddened by the fact that my sister moved out after graduation and we were physically separated for the first time. Even though my sister moved miles away for most of her adult life, we were never farther than a phone call away. My sister passed on in chapter sixty-nine and left a void that cannot be replaced.
My life has many chapters that contain mysteries. I’m getting better at solving them as time goes on. There are adventures in all the chapters, some good and others not so good. There are happy times and sad times. I pity people that get stuck on a chapter in their life and can’t get past the insignificant details to continue on. They keep reliving the same things over and over, holding grudges and staying angry as if that will change the chapter. Once it is written, it is best to move on.
I know someone who keeps repeating what her life was like when she was young and living at home. She didn’t have it easy but if I say so myself, it wasn’t as difficult as most people had it at that time. Besides, all the people that hurt her are gone now. She holds the resentment and anger and it is keeping her from enjoying what little she might have left in her life. She has so many blessings and can’t acknowledge them because she is caught in the past. Her book has almost seventy chapters, all the same. It would be a boring read.
My philosophy is to record the facts and move on to the future with hope that all will be much better. Live your life one chapter at a time and make each one an adventure.