Wordless

i haven't posted in a while. i also haven't written in my journal in forever. i open the pages or my netbook and stare at all that white--it seems so overwhelming. Partly, because in the first part of June i have taken an unexpected rollercoaster ride of emotions and hardly know what to say, how much to share or how to express it. Also, i feel like i poured all of my words into my novel....which turned out more autobiographical than fictional in the end. Ok, it was completely autobiographical; and it enabled me to check  "write my life story" off of my bucket list :)

As of yet, my novel is untitled. i have decided to edit sections, and post parts here on my blog. It will be large chunks of words, few pictures, many details and lots of soul. Please, help me name it. After all, how does one title one's life? Yet it seems incomplete without a name. Here is the prologue. Tell me if you want more or if i should return to other sorts of postings.

Prologue

I always wanted to die by spontaneous combustion. All that would be left of me would be a pair of hot pink chucks, smoking in the middle of the sidewalk. It’s true that most people hope to die of old age while they are asleep in their beds, but that felt too boring for me. Being as dramatic as I am, that sounded like an anticlimactic ending. My viewpoint has slightly changed since I originally imagined the front page news story of “A Flaming Ending for Jennifer Wadsworth.” Now I would leave behind a smoking  pair of fuschia patent leather stilettos. And, chances are, if I do go out in flames, it will be because God has smote me with lightning, not because my life was so incredible that I went out in a blaze of glory.

Truth be told, my life is far from incredible. In fact, when it comes down to it, even though I like to act dramatic and make everything that happens to me seem exciting or terrifying or exceptional, I am a very average person with a very average life. Maybe that is the reason that I would like to have an infamous ending-- so that perhaps I will be acknowledged and even remembered after I am gone. How then, knowing that I am nothing special,  can I justify writing a story about my life-- especially considering the fact that I am only twenty seven and therefore (in all probability) my life has truly only just started? I suppose it ties back to my greatest fear.

I am terrified of being forgotten. The thought that I am forgettable makes me feel as if my life doesn’t matter. Therefore, I am determined to make myself memorable. Benjamin Franklin said, ‘If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.’  And so here I find myself, trying to prove that the things I have done and experienced are worth writing about and that what I am writing is worth reading. That perhaps by some chance, someone some day will be interested in the life of a not so exceptional, highly average but overly dramatic and passionate Jennifer.

 

Besides, Jacob always wanted me to write our story. We would talk about it when we were curled up together on the couch, reminiscing about the past, giggling at the ridiculousness of the situations we had been in or pondering how we made it through some of the trials. Sometimes it would come up while something amazing was happening, like when we were flying around Isla Mujeres Mexico on a scooter after just having swam with dolphins; “This belongs in a movie almost! This chapter of our story will be amazing.”

 

When he talked about writing our story, I don’t think he ever thought this is what I would be writing. I know I didn’t. Nevertheless, despite all the fairy tales we believed in then, this is it— our story.