Memoir Writing - Teacher's Write Lesson

You will write a different memoir today than you will write ten years from now. And that’s how it should be. Tell the truth the best you can in the time you are telling your story.

You are a truth-seeker, NOT a truth-teller. 

            No one is the keeper of that.  Truth changes.  It is not static, it is not even true. 

When you understand that you will write a better memoir.

A memory from the year 2011:

I decided to go through the stack of mail, which had been a constant eye sore for a few weeks on my countertop. I open my computer and log into my checking account. Wedding invitations, birth and graduation announcements have been missed, and I am reminded of my best friend’s birthday luncheon in a few days. Weeks have gone by, and I have done nothing.

I squint as my eyes start to fill with tears, and I rest my eyes on a Christmas nesting doll on my dresser. I pick up the nesting doll and pull the top off. Deluges of memories come rushing out as I carefully line up each doll, biggest to smallest. Like my family, there are seven: a father, a mother, and five children. I line the dolls up evenly, unlike my life, with so many ups and downs. Even I know that life does not line up neatly. The dolls remind me of my joys, sorrows, hardships, and anger over the last 30 years since I received it. The layers of grief, but also good times. I glance at my paperless credit card bills, my master's tuition, my daughter's tuition, and wonder how to fix it all on my online checking account.

Frustrated, I touch the dolls, one by one. Our children are at college, or married, with only Brett at home. And for some reason, when we were packing, I grabbed this nesting doll, and put it with my socks, and then when we moved in, I stuck it on this bare shelf. All of my other possessions are in boxes. I look at the nesting doll, and I feel a little better, stronger. We can do this. There will be better days ahead, like Christmas. All our kids will be home. The dolls can be lined up together in a neat little row, if only for a few days.