Halloween edition: Looking at the past to create a better future.
In this Edition:
Quote.
Update.
Highlight of the week: Bluey
Motivate & Book discussion combined.
Final thoughts.
Update:
Happy Halloween!
Tomorrow officially starts NaNoWriMo (described in a previous blog), and I’m actually pretty nervous about committing to writing 50,000 words in the next 30 days.
Are you ever afraid you won’t be able to do something you’re faced with having to do?
What if I only had 4 books in me? What if I can’t write a new one that’s any good? What if my writing career is over before it’s ever begun? You know the spiraling thoughts you can get sucked into.
While I am nervous (it’s about 2,000 words per day!!) I’m also excited. I have NO idea what will happen this month, but I’m determined to make it fun, even if I end up with a flaming pile of garbage.
There are several of my writing friends who are joining me. When you do something like this with others, it turns into an experience. I’ll share my process along the way.
Tomorrow, I’m also starting my Christmas decorating. My husband had the nerve to tell me I didn’t need to buy ANOTHER Christmas tree. Preposterous. So he’s dead now. Don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.
What are your November plans?
Highlight of the week:
If you don’t have kids in your life, you might not know who this blue dog is. This is a huge costume from the Australian show Bluey, and my husband is inside it. This is my favorite moment of the week.
It’s special when I get to watch my husband excelling at dad duties. He ordered this costume from a Chinese company and has used it to make our girls happy and has made a lot of other kids (and adults) happy in the process.
This week I’m merging two sections because what I’m reading has filtered into my thoughts for the past week.
I haven’t done much fiction reading lately, but I have been beta reading a memoir. It’s been a lot of fun.
I’ve always been curious about memoirs because my memory isn’t that good. A memoir is a historical account or biography of a person’s life, usually written by the author or at least from the author’s perspective. I have this suspicion that if I were to try to write about my life, it would be a hot mess.
I use many aspects of my own experiences in my fiction novels, but writing an accurate account of what has passed so far in my own life would be very challenging for me. Though, I’d imagine that my thirty-something years might prove entertaining as I’ve struggled through many hot-button topics: biracial bullying, single-parent home, financial insecurity, sibling woes, family alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, fostering, religious struggles, and the list goes on. Wow, when I think about it, I most certainly would never write a biography. So I really admire those who can do it.
It makes me think about my life though. If you think back through your own life, what stands out? What lessons have you learned?
The memoir and the questions asked in my meditation guide for this past week have had me thinking about patterns in my life, and what I could improve on. Traumatic life events occur that we wish we could erase, and we certainly don’t want to face them, especially if we’ve already worked through them. But sometimes looking back at those experiences teaches us other underlying lessons.
The following example bleeds into the short story I’m working on, a Christmas tale that follows a woman whose self-image is distorted because of her past.
Say you had an affair in your past. Maybe you regretted it, worked through it, we’re forgiven, and forgave yourself. The sorted mess was settled; why would you ever dig back into something you buried? Wouldn’t that cause unnecessary pain? It might, but taking a look back might also help you analyze WHY you slipped up in the first place. Maybe it’s because you were lonely, which made you more vulnerable. That’s not an excuse, but if you only address the affair, you might miss the underlying reason for the affair in the first place.
If you understand WHY something happened, you might be able to explore other patterns in life and fix those to prevent them from happening in the future.
There have been a few friendships in my life that have essentially fallen apart for reasons I didn’t quite understand at the time. I haven’t wanted to look too closely because the thoughts are painful. But recently, I have let myself think through why, and it’s given me such peace, and I’ve been able to understand myself better in the process, which helps me avoid the same problems in the future.
I have the tendency to blame myself for things like this, wondering if there’s something about me I’m not aware of.
In reality, it’s a culmination of many things and reasons and circumstances. Our pasts always shape our futures. Our pasts create lenses for how we see the world.
Seeking to understand other people’s lenses is invaluable too. It helps us relate and not hold grudges because that’s a weight you just don’t need in life. It keeps you from your full potential.
Looking back at past pains can cause a spiral of depression, so you have to be in the right mindset to discover the underlying pearls that can push you forward and help you understand yourself or others.
Final thoughts:
I typically don’t like to dwell in the past. I’ve watched people get completely tripped up by living in their pasts. But I do think looking at our histories with a critical eye, one that isn’t judgemental but more curious, can lead us to a better understanding of our future selves.
It’s a way to grow and avoid repeating the same errors.
I hope your Halloween is filled with delight!
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Much glitter,
Melissa
