The End of 100 Essays

The other day, my husband said to me, “I think your writing has resurrected your career.” No, I thought. My writing has resurrected me.

My 100 Essays project pulled me from the swamp of self-doubt and retreat that was becoming so dominant in my struggle with my own aging. Writing something significant every day, not necessarily significant to the world but significant to me, reinstated my legitimate claim to a point of view, something I had started, unwittingly, to relinquish to others. I had forgotten, if you will, how smart I could be when I tried.

The aging thing was killing me. More than any other experience – love, childbearing, career – aging made the ‘earth move under my feet’ in a way that had me holding both railings going downstairs. Uncertain, worried, and full of dread. My life, what there was left of it, appeared to be one very short, very steep, completely icy sledding hill with a big, unforgiving tree at the bottom.

If you aren’t yourself an ‘older person’ as we so delicately say, you won’t get what all the aging angst is about. It is about an acute discomfort in one’s own skin; a complete lack of familiarity with the expectations of others; and utter confusion about what one ought to do next. Do more, less, nothing? Indecision creates paralysis; that’s where I was.

My 100 Essays project came as a whim. The thought was to challenge myself. Do something hard every day. Rack up the essays. 100 in 100 days. There are 100 plus a couple. I have been nothing if not prolific and all over the map in terms of topics. Some pieces make me want to smack myself on the side of the head and others I’d like to frame. Two pieces, in particular, I like: The Mother My Daughter Is and When Your Father Dies. An essay I wrote yesterday, At My Mother’s Knee, goes back to a theme that has been an important one for me – the resolution of family estrangement. Some people were surprised I would be so honest about something so difficult. They shouldn’t be. A good essay needs to deal with something complex, a conflict, bewilderment. That’s where the utility or purpose of writing lies in the first place, offering up one’s story for others to use, maybe, in their own lives, provide an opportunity to see things differently.

Of course, after 100 days, this daily essay thing has become an addiction. The benefits have been fabulous. First, my mind has cleared and I’ve gotten myself out of that swamp of self-doubt and retreat. My writing has improved. I feel more confident to take on different subjects and more willing to take chances. I just write it and put it out there. Some stuff gets tremendously great response, a lot just lies there like a passel of dead frogs. When someone tells me that a piece meant something special to them, hit home in some way, I am happy, truly happy. It surprises me how rewarding this is.

So it seems to me that there is no reason to quit what has helped me rebuild myself. So I continue – maybe not as maniacally – but pretty regularly. I’m here as long as I have something to say and someone to listen.

And I’m glad for it.