So I found an image floating around facebook and decided to accept its challenge. No specific parameters were set beyond those written as a list in the image. No timeline, no word count, no instruction.
Loose. My kind of challenge.
So I've dedicated myself. One list item per day. I'm not worrying over word counts or quality. This is really just to get me back into the habit of writing. Forcing myself back into the deep end after too long without swimming.
It already feels good.
Day One Goal: Write a short autobiography.
Result:
Day
1: A Short Autobiography
I,
much like every other human, do not recall the day I was born—or
days as it is in my case. I have heard the story every year on my
birthday; how my mother labored for four days to bring me into this
world. She uses the event as the first evidence of my stubborn
personality. I find it rather apt.
My
childhood was not always a happy one. There are dark corners and
shadowed monsters which I do not like to remember. From a very young
age I was plagued by night terrors brought on by past traumas.
My
family was not a happy one. Broken apart and pasted back together until we accepted the cracks. I do not mean to say my childhood was unhappy, just that happy is not a word to describe it. Loved, yes. Protected, yes. Good, yes. But not the
golden-edged glow implied by “happy”. Happy has no secrets, no shadows. I have many.
My mother worked hard to
provide and protect us. She always put her children before
everything. Sometimes she forgot that we were not as tough as she
was. My father worked hard too. He worked to make us
happy, to spoil us however he could. Sometimes he forgot that we'd
rather see him at our school plays and concerts than have all the
toys at Christmas.
But as
we grow we learn. We learn to be strong, to hide our sensitivity, to
bare the weight. We learn that our parents are not perfect. Our child
eyes become infected by the demon shards of adulthood: revealing the
flaws in our heroes, and virtues in our villains.
We
grow, and we learn how good those childhood days were. When problems
were black and white, when our parents worked to keep us happy. And
that's all we can hope to live up to. To do it a little better, a
little wiser. Learning from the generations past. Trying desperately
to end a legacy of abuse. Trying to maintain familial bonds. Trying
to be like our
parents, without becoming them.
