Daily writing promptScour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.View all responses Well, it's more of a challenge than usual prompts, that's for sure! I find too many things interesting…
Well, it's more of a challenge than usual prompts, that's for sure! I find too many things interesting to follow instructions to a T, so here's what I'm choosing, with high hopes it won't be pay-walled if someone wishes to read the whole thing:
Honestly, even if it's pay-walled, the excerpt below should suffice. I don't think this woman's whole life was shaken at all really, but the headline did capture my attention. 🙂
It's about missed timing and moving on with one's life.
Excerpt:
I truly believe that if he and I had taken a chance and moved somewhere together, we could have shared an amazing love and life. But it was too much to contemplate then, and we couldn't overcome the structural and emotional barriers.
Now, almost 35 years later, I believe he was a perfect partner for me in more ways than one, confirming that primal instinct I had as a young woman. Things could have worked out. But they didn't.
Those new to my blog should know there's a character on the outskirts of my story--a young love who, after many years apart and my moving on more dramatically than he (marriage, kids, etc.), attempted re-connection. On paper it's all very romantic; there are wonderful memories and a sense that we, more than anyone else, know the other's young idealism and daring. We're both greying and playing Chutes and Ladders with our weight, share similar outlooks on quite a few issues. It's so close. Sigh.
But we don't get along. haha
Or, we do, but like trees in different weather conditions, we've grown very differently. It's hard to bridge a certain gap, which to me, feels like the same gap there was back then, though it's hard to articulate how that's so. I feel as though I've changed a lot more than he has, and am a more serious person in a lot of ways, which is natural as someone who has raised three kids and suffered big losses. I also have more challenging commitments, and he's not the sort to take those on.
It would have been nice if we'd been able to face and work through the gap between us back then, which didn't happen. I grew up, and we both on to new adventures, like this author. While he still harbors ill-feelings and nurses grudges, I don't have that kind of energy. For me to be even consider getting involved with someone, they'd have to be a pretty resilient and seasoned sort of person, fairly unfazed, easy to be around. And our communication would have to be incredible.
A while ago he sent me photos of pages of letters I wrote to him back when we were older teens crossing the boundary into young adulthood. I skimmed them and felt so strange, not recognizing myself nor remembering what I'd written and almost not being able to bear reading them closely..an experience the author of the article might deem life-shaking. When I finally read them closely, I smiled a lot, and remembered how enamored I was with him.
It was sweet, but also sad. I wrote on a page of an old yearbook in one case, saying I wouldn't have paper until I received my paycheck, which really affected me, brought me back to those days and how I was living. That he doesn't seem to remember the circumstances of my family life back then and that my heading into the mountains on my 18th birthday wasn't only about being in love, is strange to me.
Weirdly, I feel more mature in some ways, than the woman who wrote this article. It reminded me of when I really loved a certain famous columnist's writing enough to have a photo of her on my dream board in my late 20s. At the time, I had a draft of a book outline that was divided by names of boyfriends I'd had, but scrapped it because what could be more immature than that!?
But then she published a book with that kind of idea, and it sold very well. 🙂
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