#memoir class

[harpercollegece]

Create a Legacy: Write Your Family History or Memoir

Create a Legacy: Write Your Family History or Memoir

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[frecklesgonewild]

Our first writing prompt was to write a how-to guide in the second person about a subject we have a lot of personal experience in. I contemplated writing a how-to guide to be a fan of Supernatural, but in a spurt of anxiety ridden reality, I decided to write a guide to being anxious about just about anything. So here goes. 

First, take a deep breath. It’ll be the last one for a while. Now say goodbye to the free feeling in your chest, that worry-free, relaxed, “I’m okay” feeling. Then open your email.  Delete all the spam emails you get because you signed up for that one coupon that one time, and focus in on the email from a friend.  She just wants to let you know about a job opportunity she found that she thinks you might be a good fit for. Feel your heart rate accelerate marginally.  Sure, you do need a job. But now you feel pressured.  Your shoulders tighten. Begin thinking about opening the link. Do you have the energy right now to look at a job listing? Even if you don’t, maybe you should. What if your friend asks you about it? What would you say? Imagine how the conversation would go: “No, I didn’t get a chance to look at it. Thanks, though!” But your internal dialogue sounds more like, “Go away. Stop asking! No, I didn’t apply, because…well… what if they don’t like me? What if I am not a good fit? What if I can’t do it? What if the apocalypse starts? Huh? What if?” This inner dialogue is matched with an image of you with your arms raised above your head, warding off gunfire or something. But, nope, you can’t say that. Too much exposure.   Your well-intentioned but oblivious friend says, “Oh, but I think you should! It’s a great position…” and you stop listening as your breathing hitches, and your heart begins to pound in your ears. With what little air you have left in your lungs you say, “Thanks. I’ll try and look at it when I get home.” and you walk away as fast as possible without being rude.  Now, frantically begin to worry that maybe you just ruined that friendship by being rude and not applying for the job they told you about. Debate briefly about going back and talking to them again, but decide that it would make you look even more socially awkward. Maybe they would get weirded out, not by your previous rudeness, but by your awkward need to please them. No. It’s better to just leave it be and hope you don’t run into them for a few days until they've forgotten how weird you are, and their weirdness quota is back to empty for the week. Then spring it on them again!

Shake your self back to the present. The email still waits, and you can almost see the edges of the lettering pulsing red, like some kind of email from Hell. Maybe you’ll come back to it later.  You open a new tab, but leave the email tab open, because you don’t want to forget completely what you should be obsessing over. Just a little bit. Maybe you’ll come back to it when you are calmer and feeling more…something.   In the new tab, open Facebook.  Scan through different posts from friends you haven’t spoken to in years, only to see at least two different friends have recently gotten engaged, and another friend is pregnant. Again. Begin to wonder if you are doing enough with your life.  Begin to ponder how your friends got to these life milestones before you did. Obsess briefly over what’s wrong with you. Feel yourself begin to breathe shallowly, an ache building in your chest. Feel your heart begin to pound. Again. Decide Facebook may not be the best place for you to be right now.  Switch to Twitter. Scroll through twitter posts about your fandom news, friends’ random posts, and celebrities that you follow posting about what they ate today and whom they ate with. Ignore the religious posts that you no longer care about but still follow out of a strange masochistic longing to stay in touch with that world. Pause briefly on the beautiful photo an internet friend posted of your favorite actor and begin to breathe again, briefly.  But if you stay and stare too long, maybe someone will think you idolize that actor too much, and think maybe something really is wrong with you. So you scroll past, even though for a brief moment, you felt warm, and calm, and happy. No. Anxiety must be felt! Begin to see posts about the latest horrific news about the world falling apart. Scroll past, all the while wondering if there is something you should be doing to help save the world. Or worrying that because you have no energy or capability to read about the world, let alone save it, you are in fact a terrible human being, and if anyone found out, they would judge you. Or publicly shame you! Or stone you! Or something. Something terrible. But seeing how awful the world is makes you more anxious still, so ignore it and head to Pinterest. Stay on Pinterest only long enough to see all the recipes and crafts you have no skill to make, realize you can’t afford any of the food or ingredients anyway, and begin to feel anxious again about money, and your cooking skills. You really should get a job. You need the money. So you take a deep breath and decide to (briefly) look at the job posting your friend sent you. You click the link, read through the qualifications, which you meet, but have no idea how to tell them you meet their qualifications.  Begin to stew in the juices of your anxiety for another minute, debating if you should rewrite your resume completely or just send it as it is.  You realize you haven’t really breathed in about a minute, and suck in air, banishing the black spots beginning to form in your eyes.  After another breath, give up and open Netflix, all the while wondering if you should consider medication for your anxiety.   

[frecklesgonewild]

I recently started a class on writing Memoirs as Art and Spiritual Practice. Whatever that means. But I’ve been thinking lately about posting some of my assignments here, just for fun, and for a little break in all my SPN reblogs that, up to this point, have been my entire blog. So here goes. Get ready for some quirky ass shit. :D 

[haus-of-living]

This prose piece is really getting to me and I don't know why. I never write about my grandfather on my father's side because I didn't know him. I guess I never realized how much it hurts to be the only one in my immediate family that did not get to properly meet him or make memories with him. I can't fully understand why I am holding back, quite badly, tears while thinking about this.

[beckitha]

I swear, whenever I open my mouth to talk, bullshit comes out and people give me the meanest stares. Ugh, people suck.

[beckitha]

"Wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then."

About how my relationships and friendships with people, who I cared about, would end on bad terms. How those people, who I was once so close with, left me with no hesitation, no regret, and no remorse. The growth of the awkward silences, the shorten conversations, and the lack of touch, in a figurative sense, would be evidence that fueled the downward-spiral of everything between me and those people. Thinking back now, it's heartbreaking to realize that they aren't there anymore; they just walked out of my life without looking back nor with any last words. For certain people, it felt as though I had lost a part of myself due to the fact that I put too much of myself and my trust onto them. I basically led them to intentionally hurt me, if you really think about it. I mean I was always used to being forgotten, replaced, neglected, and even used. But by those people, it's just, sad. The trust I had towards them, based on the experiences and memories involving them, had huge impacts on how I interact with people today; nowadays, it's really hard for me to talk to people, trust people, or even keep them interested in me so wouldn't leave me like many others have. When meeting new people, I give off an impression that holds me back to who I truly am as a person, in order to gain the kind of acceptance and respect I had been raised to look for in making friends. I used to be so open-minded, carefree, and outgoing. But now, I'm always careful with what I say, how I approach people and conversations, how I think, and how I behave. I feel restricted and limited to branch out to people because I care too much about what others think and see of me. Yeah I know it's bad; it's always been a pattern in my life that I'm just so used to and I wish I saw that before, so I could change myself for the better then, but I didn't. I guess you could say that I'm the kind of person who always replies on looking back at her past to try and deal with current situations. You would be right and I wouldn't disagree. But I couldn't help it, because I was too young and naive to realize how much that habit would grow into such a bad quality that I slowly obtained as I got older. It affected my middle schools years and even now. It's not as intense as it was years ago, but I do have my moments where I just sit there or walk around, thinking. And thinking. And more thinking. Even the littlest things that I encounter triggers even the deepest of memories and thoughts that I try not to think about and never talk about. There are only 3 people I can think of who I trust more than anyone, even more than my old-fashion parents.

For topics like these, I know deep down that I have more I want to say, but I never have the right words to translate my complex thoughts nor do I have the courage to even bring up the sensitive subjects. I know as I go on with life, that I'll be able to better express what I want let out so that I can learn from my problems and move on, but I'm still young and I know I have more time to grow and mature through these silly adolescent problems, as well as get through not worrying about something that's already happened, regardless of how bothersome it is to me now. But, the only reason I do that is so I know not to do that in the present. Which is completely ironic considering I'm still in the process of thinking too far back in my past and not focusing enough on my current issues and dealing what right there in front of me; which will forever continue later on as this constant cycle of wishing I didn't know now, what I didn't know then.