This is the most interesting thing I've read on Substack in a LONG time! I want to know more about all of it but selfishly I want to hear all the Gen X / midlife stuff as I am also in my "What am I doing with my life phase"
I also want to know how and why you chose to present this story in this way... It feels like a peak into how your brain works and I'd love to know where that comes from.
Aw thank you! This midlife stuff is weird for sure… I was talking with someone who didn’t know me beyond our kid-connection and I surprised myself with the things I could say I’d done (really not much but still more than the nothing I feel like most of the time). That made me wonder what proof I have of who I am/was. And I love research and archives and just started thinking about how I could play with this.
My office is even more of a mess now after digging through my boxes!
It’s funny all the stuff we collect and the projects we start, store, and never finish. Life seems to just steam roll past a lot of stuff sometimes.
I really liked this bit — “These materials were exhumed from a hoard of files labeled “Autism Parenting” in a suburban mother’s home office, during a personal “What Have I Done With My Life” review.”
Thanks! I have so many thoughts on organizing and/or doing something with all of this stuff, and never ever ever enough time…So, I spent a bunch of time writing about it all instead 😆
I was so right in not opening this right away. If I hadn’t felt like I had a wasted life before, officially, I do now. You are definitely a writer; you are very funny, and you’re asking the wrong question; it’s not “Why can’t I just throw things away?” It’s what does this chronicled life mean to me? And what am I afraid of losing? The last of which is me projecting theoretic meaning unto your beautifully organized life in files, books and boxes. Lastly I cannot answer the last question, “what does all that stuff in your closets say about you” because 1) I’d be afraid to answer, and 2) I’m at the beginning of safely divesting myself of the evidence. As a corollary you’ve out-organized the best Mormon and are on par with having a fine engineers mind.
Oh, Wanda, I hope I didn’t make you feel like you had a wasted life! It’s true, though, that looking through all of these other possible incarnations of “what ifs” can be sobering. And, you are right - these are the questions I am really asking, and I’m giving myself some grace to say, hey, maybe I didn’t do all those things I thought I’d do, but I did do SOME things, as evidenced by all of this stuff I still have…. And I am proud of many of these now seemingly silly things. I love your description of “divesting” yourself from the evidence…I need to make my way towards that, too. But I thought I may as well write about some of it first and take you all into my reminiscences with me!
And, I have spent enough time in Family History Centers to appreciate the LDS organizing gene, and credit my engineer dad (and science-minded mom) for my skills, too 😆
This is the most interesting thing I've read on Substack in a LONG time! I want to know more about all of it but selfishly I want to hear all the Gen X / midlife stuff as I am also in my "What am I doing with my life phase"
I also want to know how and why you chose to present this story in this way... It feels like a peak into how your brain works and I'd love to know where that comes from.
Aw thank you! This midlife stuff is weird for sure… I was talking with someone who didn’t know me beyond our kid-connection and I surprised myself with the things I could say I’d done (really not much but still more than the nothing I feel like most of the time). That made me wonder what proof I have of who I am/was. And I love research and archives and just started thinking about how I could play with this.
My office is even more of a mess now after digging through my boxes!
I love this!!!! What a wonderful idea!
Thank you! It was fun to play around with this format
This was such a cool idea, Robin!
It’s funny all the stuff we collect and the projects we start, store, and never finish. Life seems to just steam roll past a lot of stuff sometimes.
I really liked this bit — “These materials were exhumed from a hoard of files labeled “Autism Parenting” in a suburban mother’s home office, during a personal “What Have I Done With My Life” review.”
:)
Thanks! I have so many thoughts on organizing and/or doing something with all of this stuff, and never ever ever enough time…So, I spent a bunch of time writing about it all instead 😆
I think what you did was a great way to honour all of it in a time efficient manner :)
I was so right in not opening this right away. If I hadn’t felt like I had a wasted life before, officially, I do now. You are definitely a writer; you are very funny, and you’re asking the wrong question; it’s not “Why can’t I just throw things away?” It’s what does this chronicled life mean to me? And what am I afraid of losing? The last of which is me projecting theoretic meaning unto your beautifully organized life in files, books and boxes. Lastly I cannot answer the last question, “what does all that stuff in your closets say about you” because 1) I’d be afraid to answer, and 2) I’m at the beginning of safely divesting myself of the evidence. As a corollary you’ve out-organized the best Mormon and are on par with having a fine engineers mind.
Oh, Wanda, I hope I didn’t make you feel like you had a wasted life! It’s true, though, that looking through all of these other possible incarnations of “what ifs” can be sobering. And, you are right - these are the questions I am really asking, and I’m giving myself some grace to say, hey, maybe I didn’t do all those things I thought I’d do, but I did do SOME things, as evidenced by all of this stuff I still have…. And I am proud of many of these now seemingly silly things. I love your description of “divesting” yourself from the evidence…I need to make my way towards that, too. But I thought I may as well write about some of it first and take you all into my reminiscences with me!
And, I have spent enough time in Family History Centers to appreciate the LDS organizing gene, and credit my engineer dad (and science-minded mom) for my skills, too 😆