BonBlogs…a work in progress

Am I what I did, ways I survived, or how I feel about it all today?
Am I who I was raised to be, how I rebelled against that, or what I’ve created from scratch?

The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry. This entry, 35, doesn’t *really* exist yet, as I’m not half-way through that age yet. So, for now, this is where I stop and reflect. And I don’t know the answers. How could I? No one does. And anyone who pretends to is just a better bullshitter than I am. Point is, I’m here. I’ll continue to post a “new year” each birthday, so check back 11 July 2006 for the “official” Sum of All Years for age 35. So far, so good. Thank you, Cliff, for the challenge. Thank you, everyone, for being open to this, for commenting on the experience, for taking on the challenge of it all, for finding inspiration in it, and most of all for enjoying the read. See yaz next year!

My reverse-chronological commentary on the process of creating The Sum of All Years is here, here, here, here, and here.

Okay, so I’ve been asked about The Sum of All Years project and how it is I’ve decided to (over) share so much. Well, I look at it this way.

I’m a public person. I’m out about my damage (after having not been for so many years). And there are people who live everyday lives and have walked the same trail of tears I have, when younger, and never feel they’ll be enough. And maybe I can help. Maybe I can prove that you can have everything go wrong and still make it. Or that you can appear as though you’ve done everything right and still have a shadow self (and that there’s nothing wrong with that). Heck, maybe it’s all about giving me an excuse for my mid-life damage, airing all of the “back then” BS. I don’t know! And maybe I don’t have to know.

What I like about this project is that it’s about an autobiography. That’s why I can’t leave anything out. Yes, you could wait ’til I’m dead and dig up my unshared writings and learn whose fingerprints have been on my life… or I could own it now and say, “And y’know what? I’m STILL OKAY.”

Nothing wrong with that.

It may be totally narcissistic, but it could also be liberating to others. I’m human. I’m broken. And I still happen to do just fine, thank you.

I’m going to make an observation about the process of taking on The Sum of All Years project.

It’s more like therapy than I’d anticipated it would be. And it’s hard to distill each year down to its most… what? Most life-defining? Most memorable? Most exciting? Most wish I could forget it? Most still a part of me? Most what I’ve conquered? Most how I now see myself… events. I still don’t know. And I’ll save most of my postmortem for, well, after.

Just know, if you take on this challenge (as many of you have said you’ll do), you’ll likely find some truths about yourself that you didn’t think you’d ever make public (and wonder what the agenda has been in keeping things to yourself… as well as what the agenda may be in revealing them now), and you’ll learn you’re both more and less broken than perhaps you thought you were.

Again, more at the end. Just wanted to get that out there, as fair warning for anyone taking on the project.

A part of me wants to stop. A part of me cannot. A part of me must. A part of me will not.

Thanks for reading, just the same.