Update.

So as most of my loyal readers have known (but have been too kind to say) - this blog has sucked lately.

I can offer an explanation (it's up to you to decide if it's a good one).   I entered a writing contest.  It took a lot more of my 'word energy' than I expected.

Anyhow.  I had plenty of time to write said story.  Yet somehow, I found myself scrambling to make the deadline up until the final hour for submissions.  It was sweet and reminiscent of college.  Sigh.  Maybe it's good practice for what's to come, if I head back to school.

The writing prompt was to write a personal memoir.   So I did.  Judging based on past winners of said contest, I don't really think I have a chance of winning, because it's not a sensational/traumatic/life-changing enough experience that I chose to write about (no more info about my piece will be discussed).  But that's ok; I wrote the story more for cathartic purposes.  

However, what I had the most trouble with was ending the story.  I feel like these things are always supposed to end on a 'I learned something/I changed for the better'  kind of note.  I wasn't sure what to say here.  Maybe it's that I don't think everything happens for a reason or that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.   I've surely lived a charmed life compared to most, yet if everything happens for a reason, there's a couple instances on which I'm still waiting for an explanation.   That, and I do think that sometimes in life, some experiences wear us down, weaken us, dishearten us, and cause us to put up walls.   So, I had no trouble explaining this experience and how it affected my life, but I'm not sure I gave them the Cinderella ending they were hoping for.  That, and, as a Chicagoan, I probably ended  some sentences in prepositions (see previous sentence) - I have a tendency to unabashedly do that.

That, and another challenge is the fact that, as a friend once put it, sometimes it's the things that we wish we couldn't remember that most shaped our lives.  It's hard to write a memoir when, in doing so, one is intentionally revisiting an unpleasant life experience.

Anyhow.  One thing I can promise - I will now have more time to put into this blog.   For better or for worse.