<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>The author, age 19.<\/p><\/div>\n
We were just scratching the surface of her past when she died, and now there were so many unanswered questions. And I had no one to ask.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I knew I\u2019d have a daughter one day. I didn\u2019t have a strong desire for children, no biological clock ticking away, that\u2019s just what you did, right? Had children? And I was going to have a daughter because that\u2019s what my mother had, and that\u2019s the relationship I wanted, what she and I had. Don\u2019t question my logic, I was young I and I knew this was what was to be.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But now I had to prepare: What if I had a daughter, and then I too, died suddenly? I didn\u2019t want to leave my daughter with unanswered questions about me, who I was before I started wearing the labels of wife and mother, as my mother had left me. I wanted her to know me at her age, whatever age she started having such thoughts. What were my dreams, my goals, my favorite songs and books; who were my crushes? So I started saving things again. The magazines that covered important events of my time (Curt Cobain\u2019s death), the ticket stubs (U2), the matchbooks and trinkets from my travels. I would leave her with no unanswered questions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But she never came, my daughter. For various reasons, I never had children.\u00a0 And now, I have this trunk of me. My youth and young adulthood. And I don\u2019t know what to do with all this stuff. I used to think that if I got famous or did something remotely noteworthy, my biographer might harvest this trove of insight into my life, my heart. But I\u2019m beginning to suspect there may be no biographer. True, it ain\u2019t over \u2018til it\u2019s over. But let\u2019s be realistic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So what to do with all of it? Every ten or fifteen years or so I pop it open and pop out maybe one or two things, a photo or my sash of Girl Scout badges (some still yet to be sewn on); but I have never \u2013and have no desire to \u2013 spend time with it and really explore all that\u2019s there. Honestly, I don\u2019t even know what I\u2019ll find, beside what\u2019s in plain sight on top. I already spend more time thinking about the past that I care to; better to think about the future and live in the present.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But the past, the contents of this trunk\u2013 it\u2019s what makes me who I am now. I feel like I\u2019m looking at a young me, when I glance in there: pre-setbacks, divorce, doubt, death, disappoint, rejection, disappoint, doubt, etc. I want to be her again. Me, before The Fight (aka Life). When it never dawned on me that there was anything I could not do.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m realizing as I write this that I need to keep that trunk for now. Because I am<\/i> her. And The Fight, I need to reevaluate that \u2013 because it didn\u2019t kill me, did it? And what doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever since the season finale of Mad Men and the use of the Paul Anka (fun fact:\u00a0Paul Anka sang his hit \u00a0song Diana to me, at my table in the Riviera Showroom in Las Vegas, when I was twelve!) song that I’ve not heard since I was a teenager, Times of Your Life, set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[496,498],"tags":[593,596,86,585,579,590,594,592,586,595,412,587,458,580,581,582,583,588,584,589,591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2329,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions\/2329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}