You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?
“She was born in the middle of a snowstorm on her mother’s birthday…”
Okay, maybe I won’t be pretentious and write it in third person, but I’ve very much toyed with the idea of writing an autobiography of sorts. I always said I’d wait until I was actually important to write one, but honestly, who’s the judge of importance? Lots of ordinary folks have put their life down into words.
It seems fitting to get this prompt on the eve of my birthday. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to preserve my story as I get older. I know I don’t want to be easily forgotten, that’s for sure. My biggest fear stems from one of the best animated films of all time in my opinion, Coco. At one point, a man literally dissolves into nothing after the last person on earth who remembers him dies. I don’t want to fade quietly into obscurity, with my story and my creations and my entire existence irretrievably forgotten.
That’s why I write this blog. In a way, it is my autobiography. There’s stuff on here I’m very proud of. There’s stuff on here I’m not as proud of, but it’s part of my experience nonetheless. It’s different from my social media accounts where everything is sort of curated for the particular medium I’m posting on. In this blog, though, I can be completely myself. I’m not beholden to any standards or expectations. This is my little corner of the internet to do whatever I please with.
And so I write. I write about all of the things I love. I write about all of the things I’m passionate about. And most importantly, I write down my life story. Because when I make it to the end of the road, I don’t want it to be for naught. I want my life to have meaning.
I’ve been considering my own mortality quite a bit lately. I’m becoming acutely aware of the fact that I’m slowly catapulting toward death, maybe quickly if things in the world keep progressing (or rather, regressing) the way they are. I don’t want to be a doomer and assume it’s going to get that far, but if it does, we need to preserve our stories. Anne Frank humanized an entire people group through her writing, even if she ultimately perished. Her writing lives on. She lives on.
And that, my friends, is why I write.
JESSA JOYCE 