I am writing my memoir, in earnest now, as I tentatively started to about twenty years ago.

It’s a long, slow, grueling process, lurching forward in sporadic, drunken spurts. I am, as of this typing, 25k words into it. My lofty goal is 144,000 words, which would put it on par with Dave Egger’s Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which is the arbitrary meter stick by which I’ve chosen to measure my work. My minimum, and likely achievable goal, is 90k words. We’ll see.

Anyway, I was writing tonight about the implication (accusation?) that I’m a “survivor” and the guilt I feel at the utterance of the moniker. After refuting it heavily I banged out this paragraph, which I don’t hate:

What I learned in the wake of earth-shattering loss is that surprisingly little changes. I found a body in my backyard so I got a few days off school, but I was expected back and ready to learn within a few days. My Father-in-Law died but his mortgage didn’t stop accruing interest. Aliens can come down from the sky and liquify Chicago but we’ve still got to set our clocks an hour ahead on March 12th. There is no loss that can truly shatter the Earth, aside, I suppose, from a meteoric collision akin to that which gave pause to the dinosaurs. Short of that, time marches mercilessly forward. You will lose everyone you’ve ever loved and it won’t change a thing outside of your seating arrangements around the holidays. You will move on because you’re not allowed to stop.

It’s strange to have had such a substantial event in my life at the young age of sixteen but, and I can’t stress this enough, it wasn’t even about me. Nothing happened TO me but something impactful most definitely happened AROUND me. People thought I was supposed to curl up like a pill bug and stay in the corner for the rest of my life but I didn’t because, despite what we’ve been led to believe is acceptable and expected behavior, that shit doesn’t fly. You’re still alive, so get back to it. We all have a function, even if we don’t know it, so take a break, catch a breath, drink some water, then get back to work. You’re woven in the tapestry as long as blood pumps through your veins so get to it. This is the harsh truth of “Life.” This is “Reality.” You’re going to die one day and only then you’re off the hook. In the meantime, bury your loved ones and get back on the board.

Doesn’t that seem sick to anyone else?