Aging and Memoir

Turning 70 this year was a shock. I know I had a whole year to get used to the idea, but I haven’t. How could I have hit such a big number?  Am I now officially “old?”  Whatever 70 means (or doesn’t) I feel suddenly closer to the end of my life.

I wrote a memoir 10 years ago about raising my twins, starting from their premature birth and ending when they left for college at 18. (A miracle for my autistic daughter.)  That book has a logical beginning and ending, and I was only 60 when I finished it.  Plenty of time for my kids to mature, and plenty of time for me and my husband to start our next chapter with and without them.

So much has happened in the past ten years that I have more than enough material to write a second memoir. Our twins are now 35! If I start writing now, they will be at least 36 by the time I finish. A sequel memoir would cover the same number of adult years as I chronicled for their childhood.

Perhaps now is the moment to start writing. More and more people my age and younger are dying and most of my friends (including me) are cancer survivors. I don’t want to wait too long…. I’d like my 78-year-old husband, my friends and peers in the autism community to be around to read this book while I’m alive.

Aging is a gift I tell myself (and believe it most of the time). I am now 16 pages into my second memoir and finding it much more difficult to write than the first one.  My son Matt lives in Los Angeles, so we no longer have the day to day contact we had when he lived in New York. Samantha still lives with us but comes and goes fairly independently.  I call myself her “momager” helping with her life and career, trying as hard as I can to step back, knowing that one day I won’t be around to support her and worrying about who will be there.

Writing about my adult children and my family is much more difficult and complicated than it used to be. Samantha loves the spotlight and attention my writing brings to her.  Matt not so much. If anything, my son would love to edit himself out of my memoir, so it will be a balancing act for me to share our family experiences and my feelings about them while respecting his privacy.

I’m still writing about their college years. I believe I have greater jurisdiction over those school years than their 20-something adult strivings. Don’t parents have greater freedom to tell stories about their children’s college experiences if we are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide those experiences? Of course it’s not just about money.  I don’t want to embarrass either of my adult children.  But Matt is allergic to embarrassing situations while Samantha is almost never embarrassed (even when most people would be). Hopefully, there’s a good middle ground.

After years of putting my children’s needs before my own—as most parents do—I’m wondering if now is the moment to put my needs first.  Right now, my need is to share my story with the world or whatever part of the world is interested in reading it. I’m not writing my memoir to earn money (though I’d happily accept a check). I’m writing to share my experiences and survival of those experiences because I believe that my truth is relatable and may be uplifting to others on similar journeys.  I know I will never be famous or win a Pulitzer prize and that’s fine. But I don’t want to stay invisible either. I want to step out of the shadows of my family and all the labor that went into helping difficult kids grow up and prosper—each to the best of his/her ability. I’m proud of Matt and Samantha and all that they have accomplished. I hope they are as proud of themselves as I am.

Maybe it’s a bit self-indulgent to say I’m proud of myself too but our family story inspires me to write about it despite the privacy pitfalls.

I’ve been so worried about how my son will feel about some of our story that it’s held me back from writing. I wish I could edit out everything potentially embarrassing but then the story will have too many holes and not be authentic. Trying to find a middle ground is not easy.

For now—and before my time runs out—I’m going to write my second memoir unfiltered.  There will be plenty of time to edit—hopefully without losing depth and authenticity. I just have to put the story down and worry about the possible fallout later.

Carefully and confidently.