I am grateful that my dad didn't stop sending me Valentine packages just because I got married. They're always a great combination of gifts both sophisticated (this year, a nice Starbucks mug and gift card) and whimsical (a red pen with a topper of troll hair and giant plastic lips). This year, however, the gift medley also included a blast from my past which Mom must have discovered and printed out when she was cleaning out the document files on her computer. I cringe a little bit when I imagine the laughs that she and Dad must have gotten at my expense.
It was basically a blog...a slightly humorous attempt at pithy, insightful nonfiction. I had written it on Valentine's Day of 1998, which meant that I was 15. I observed that Taylor Hanson (made famous by "Mmm-bop"), who was my same age, had made a lot more money than I had that year. The writing was not very clever, my arguments were cliche, and other than a nice closing line, the overall effect was unremarkable.
I can dismiss this particular piece of writing (and the boxes of similiar material stashed in my garage) as being the product of a immature and inexperienced mind with illusions of greatness (the essay was written under the letterhead of "CrossWords Publishing," of which I was president). But what is much more disturbing than my high-school fantasies or even my parents laughing at me is this nagging fear that not much has changed, except that now my pithy nonfictional thoughts are posted in a very public forum and archived in cyberspace.
Reading old things I've written is always a reality check. I actually remember writing the Hanson money piece, and I remember the satisfaction and awe I felt when I re-read my finished product. It's the same sort of feeling I get when I skim over my favorite blogs on this website. It's humbling to admit that the self-expression that I now find to be so witty and poignant represent a self that I will condescendingly pity ten years from now. It is also helpful to remember that the issues that seem so stressful and urgent to me now will only make me laugh in the not-so-distant future. It's a little bit sobering to recognize the ways that I am still very much like the dorky girl writing essays to nobody on Valentine's Day.
One of these days, when I am fifty and too big for my britches, I am sure that my parents or one of my siblings will be happy to pull up Cum Grano Salis and remind me of all the silly ways I used take myself so seriously. So...hello, middle-aged Lindsey. Laugh all you want, but at least be grateful that I'm doing Pilates for you.
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14 comments:
Yay Pilates! We did the clam tonight... yeow!
Writing is learned, and comes with practice, just like art. I was proud of my crayon pictures at 5, my pencil drawings at 15, but at (almost) 25, I cringe when I see them, and I get the same feeling as you: that I'm still the immature girl who thinks sunsets over mountains are original.
We're in the Now, so it's hard for us to be objective, and we're not that objective about the past, either. Sometimes, we have to trust the opinion of others, and ignore the nagging feelings that we let live inside us.
So believe me when I tell you, you're a great writer! And ten years from now, you may laugh at what you wrote today, but that will only be because of the great improvement you'll have from ten years more practice, experience, and maturity. Can't wait to read it!
@karend- Yeah, the clam is a killer. Esp. for 30 reps.
@clint- I'm glad you're enjoying Garret Lewis. Enjoy it while the girls are still too little to listen carefully! Also, thanks for talking me up to the MIL.
@lydia- Good point with your drawing comparison.
You make me laugh with your writings. Its all a progression of skills. Just be glad you will have something to look back on instead of not remembering these years at all.
1. We never laughed. We still don't. Only with you, not at you.
2. I found it in print, in the front closet on the floor the day the packages were mailed. Go figure - the timing was pretty weird.
3. I thought the piece was actually pretty good. Still. But then I also liked Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. You say "cliche" like that's a bad thing.
4. I remember your dreams - fondly - and believe that you are a writer, and will probably be famous someday.
5. I am completely impartial.
Aw, is that Mom or Dad commenting?
When you're famous, will you remember us little people?
That would be mom. Dad calls me on the phone to tell me his comments and thinks that's the same thing.
haha. you just have to love our father.
You should post the original letter!
Oooo...yes, post the letter!
hmm...I thought about it. I'm undecided. Saying it's embarassing is one thing...but posting it is quite another.
Maybe.
Yes...I agree you should post it.
post it! post it! post it!
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