Hello, all from sunny (and apparently beautiful) Ohio!
I'm in town because my mom's gotta big birthday today. (We won't say how old, but I turned 30 this year and she had me when she was 29 going on 30, so you do the math ;)
My sister and I have a "girls day" planned for the three of us today to celebrate, but before my sister arrives, I decided to go for a little walk/jog around the ol' neighborhood.
Sidenote: Apparently the effects of turning 30 arise when attempting to jog on solid ground instead of an eliptical machine. My roommates can attest that I have been going to the gym faithfully this summer, but MAN my muscles hurt right now! When you can feel the different muscles that you use for various physical activities, I think that means you are old.
I am also showing age because this path that I took for my walk-jog was one I crossed MULTIPLE times a DAY when I was in my early teens. Many of my friends lived in an adjoining neighborhood and we would ride bikes/walk back and forth, ALL DAY, EVERYDAY in the summers. I could barely jog it once today. Me= Old.
As I was making the incredibly nostalgic, non-creepy trek past an old friend's house (which they no longer live in, mind you. I was just checking up on things because that's what my family DOES. My Babci does the same thing. You go past other people's houses to see what bad shape they are in now that the family you know is gone. It's a thing. Try it sometime) and I was walk-jogging, I thought about many high school/teenage memories that I can now actually think about and ponder without getting angry or nauseous. (I was a TEENAGER. I was ANGSTY. Everything is vomitous when you are 13...)
Which made me think: I've mentioned to several people of late that one of my goals in life is to publish a book before I die. People's proper response is then: "Oh! Okay...what kind of book would it be?" And I answer something similar to this blog...spiritual reflections or funny anecdotes about the realities of life. I even have some working titles that my friends helped me design: Beer and Highlights: The Julia Strukely Story, Holy Hours and Happy Hours, and one of my chapters will certainly be entitled: "How an Urban Outfitters Dress Changed the Course of My Life."
So I've got the titles, but trotting through the old neighborhood today I thought: I could never publish such memoirs while myself or anyone I know is alive. Not that I would say such horrible, terrible revealing things, but no one ever remembers stories the same way. Whatever story I would tell, someone from my past inevitably would say: "oh, I don't remember it like that" AND any terribly traumatic event USUALLY involves other people when you are growing up...who wants to talk about how tramautic something was for themselves when it probably was no big thing for whoever you were with? That's embarrassing.
But here's the Catch 22- if I wait 'til all of these people involved in said tramautic stories die to publish my memoirs, who will want to read it? They were the people important to me and now they're dead. Likewise, if I outlive everyone and then publish my memoirs when I die, who will care anything about me to read it?
I think I'm just going to bank on the latter- wait 'til I and everyone I have exploited ( I mean, er, mentioned) in the memoirs are dead and then take the risk that I will still have left a big enough mark on people I didn't know in my early years who will want to read it.
Is this too morbid for a beautiful summer day? I'm just saying. I don't understand who writes memoirs these days...it is COMPLICATED. I hope Justin Beiber didn't name names...
Sorry this wasn't theological in any way...until next time!
Peace,
Julia
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