Updates: Shoes, Books

Since people asked in comments:

1. Shoes

They are here and there are amazing. They are comfortable and sassy. Two thumbs up.

2. Book(s)

Yeah, so, a while ago, I was going to write a book. In fact, about a year ago, I did write a book. I would link to it online, but I can't find it anywhere on the web. The book is called Four Seasons of Fun, and it was published by Hallmark, in their gift books division. It's all about free and low-cost activities to do as a family, with one activity per year organized seasonally. Long-time readers may remember that I pissed a bunch of people off by asking right here in this blog for suggestions on activities to include. Yes, I asked for help! I'M SUCH A BAD PERSON.

Anyway, the book has been published and I know that it's sold at least one copy because a Facebook friend of mine bought one. I should try to get a copy at some point. Huh.

Also book-related, about a year and a half ago, I talked to an agent about writing a memoir. The agent was very encouraging and I was excited and then, I totally dropped the ball.

There are a bunch of reasons why I dropped the ball. As it would happen, shortly after meeting with the agent, I went through one of the hardest stages to date in my grief process. I also went through a hard time personally outside of the grief stuff, with a job at a company that was clearly going south; the struggle with the decision to put my house on the market; a lot of crazy, mixed up emotions around getting back into dating; and little that felt stable or settled in my existence. I never wrote a proposal or first chapter or anything and I never even told my agent what was going on. Then I moved in with CV, got my job at Reed, moved cross country, etc. etc. etc.

Once I felt a bit more settled here in Oregon, I decided to reach back out to my agent. I had no expectations. It took a while for me to hear anything back, and in the interim, I tried to work a little on the memoir. In doing so, I realized that I have no interest in writing it. What do I really have to say? Woman experiences tragedy and triumpsh? BORING. OVERDONE. Woman handles adversity with grace? Snore. Woman survives and goes on to have totally mundane life? Super snore.

I've become connected to so many amazing people through blogging, many of them young widows like myself, some of whom are writing memoirs or creating resources and foundations for grieving families and friends. I'm so grateful to them for helping to make people aware of how hard grief is for everyone and for pushing our society to be more open in talking about death and grief and what it does to people.

As I watch my cohorts reach out to people, help and educate them in a more public way, I have come to understand that I don't wish to do that. I don't want to write a book. I'm not moved to start a foundation. I might want to do those things someday, but I haven't felt that click that indicates to me that I've found the thing, my thing, to do. I'm learning about patience and not forcing things, and this is another exercise in that. If I am meant to share—beyond what I do here in this blog—what I have learned from my life with others, then I'll figure out how to do that when the time is right.

As it would happen, my agent did eventually get back to me to say that she was in a different job now and not taking on new book projects. How's that for the universe looking out for me? I finally come to the conclusion that I don't want to do the project and she isn't available to mentor me anyway. Voilà.

Anything else y'all want to hear about? If I get no requests, I'm going to write about running. I'm so into the running! Consider yourselves warned.