2.1 - Doing (I Did That?)

Most likely you had dreams of the perfect life. But your everyday activities were the reality.

Now it’s time to answer the question at the heart of writing a memoir.

What have you done?

The memory items you’ve collected in the previous exercises are evidence that you’ve done a lot. 

Now, it’s funneling time.

Think about those memory items.

How do they come together to define you? What connections do they make?

For me, pictures of my tomboy childhood—playing baseball with my brother and basketball on my high school team—bring together my athletic accomplishments.

I played in high school and college and coached high school teams, all of which took me to new job experiences and friendships. (Read Achievements and Being a Tomboy Helped Me Fit In.)

Pictures of my sons spark thoughts of the fear I carried about how the medical issue one of them had might affect him later and how I lived with that fear.

They tell me a bit about what I have done. (Read Fears and Too Busy to Be Afraid.)

What do your pictures suggest? 

Consider your undertakings.

Some were successful, some were not.

All added to who you became.

Your achievements, setbacks,

good luck, bad luck,

friends, enemies,

certainties, uncertainties,

conflicts, and peaceful times –

your “doings” made you.

For each, list as many of these “doings” as you can.

​

• achievements

• setbacks

• good luck

• bad luck

• friends

• enemies

• certainties

• uncertainties

• fears

• conflicts

• peaceful times

 

Then select two or three that bring the strongest memories to mind.

Write a paragraph (or more if you feel inspired) about these two or three.

Don’t forget to save your work, in your notebook, on your voice recorder, or in your computer file.

Title it What Have I Done?

​

Examples

​

Achievements 

• Playing with the boys and developing athletic skills

• Getting to play sports with other girls and feeling complete

• Enjoying the friendships that playing on a team brought

• Coaching high school girls’ basketball, soccer, and track

• Feeling I had found where I belong

• Coming out of my shell as a result of playing and coaching

• Turning the characteristics of a good teammate into those of a good friend

• Winning as a player and as a coach

 

Being a Tomboy Helped Me Fit In

With two older brothers and no sisters, I didn’t have much choice but to play boy games as a kid. And I enjoyed it! I joined my brothers in the typical boy stuff like playing army and cowboys. But I also got to play sports with them. My father played soccer, basketball, and baseball, and made it to the semi-pro level in baseball. A lot of activities with my dad were sports. I became pretty good at kicking a soccer ball, shooting a basketball, and hitting and fielding a baseball. These abilities really guided my high school, college, and post-college life. I played basketball in high school and was recognized with some awards. I played in college, too, but women’s collegiate athletics was not very big then, so we played for the sheer enjoyment of it. After college, sports, especially softball, introduced me to friends and a lively social life. Today, after forty years, most of my good friends are from those days. I even met my husband through our involvement in recreational softball. Being a tomboy was good to me!

​

Playing sports with my brothers and having my father as my early coach gave me an advantage, or so I thought. I developed the skills at an early age, but I also had to compete against boys. Both worked in my favor later. When I started playing basketball in high school, I could hold my own with the older girls, the juniors and seniors. In my second year, I moved up to varsity and soon had a starting spot in the line-up.

I began to feel that I had found kindred souls, other girls who liked sports and were good at them, too. Maybe because of my abilities, maybe because I had an older brother in the same class as the older girls, or maybe because they liked me, I was welcomed onto the team rather than seen as a threat. They were true competitors, and if a sophomore could help them win, then so be it.

​

The early experiences I had in high school sports stayed with me as I moved on. Only when a basketball program was started at my college did I start to feel I might fit in there. Up to then, I had a lonely existence as a college commuter. I felt comfortable with these girls and began to overcome my shyness. Off the court we socialized, partied, and bonded.

​

This carried over to my work life. One of my first full time jobs was working in a sporting goods store. Of course, the people I worked with were young and interested in athletics and sports of all kinds. I was introduced to racquetball by one co-worker who soon became a close friend. Again, the people I gravitated to shared my interest, and I could relate to them.

​

After two years, I found a teaching position. Along with it came an extra-curricular job as girls’ assistant basketball coach. I believe if I had not played in high school and college and had not had those experiences, I would not have landed the job at that time when there were few openings for English teachers.

Later in my career I became head coach of the soccer team and assistant track coach. In these positions, too, I felt comfortable and fulfilled. I attribute my staying in teaching to the elements coaching brought to my career. It was a break from grading papers and gave me a chance to see kids outside the classroom. It also forced me to delineate for myself my values. Being there for my team translated into being there for my colleagues later. Fairness, collaboration, honesty, and loyalty transferred from the field to the classroom to the meeting room. My colleagues knew I had their backs just as my teammates and my students did.

​

Fears

• First seizures

• First hospital stay

• First diagnosis

• Infantile spasms

• Programs and people helping us

• Accepting that it would be all right

• His milestones--eating, walking, talking

• Taking it one day at a time

• Taking him to early intervention programs and realizing we could do this

• Sending off to his first school days

• Caring teachers and uncaring ones, too

• Watching as he experienced rejection because of his disability

• Watching as he made his own way

• Navigating the system of special education programs

• Feeling neglectful of my other son

• His high school graduation

• Letting go

• Too Busy to Be Afraid

 

Too Busy to Be Afraid

When my son was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis at a few weeks old, fear couldn’t take over our lives. We were too busy, maybe overwhelmed, with doctors’ appointments, hospital stays, tests, meds doses, and navigating the health insurance and medical system. And that was a good thing.

The disorder has many manifestations, but basically it involves tumors on the body’s organs. It can result in anything from mild skin issues to serious seizures and intellectual disability. My son was diagnosed at the age of three weeks when we noticed a jerking of his arm, which were seizures. These continued and developed into infantile spasms. With great doctors and access to the right medicines, these were eventually controlled. Today, at the age of twenty-four, he is still taking medicines to keep the seizures under control. He has had issues with tumors on his kidney that created a bleeding problem, but again, with knowledgeable doctors and access to the medical care needed, these were dealt with. His intellectual abilities have not been seriously affected, though he did receive assistance in school with a learning disability relating to math and numbers. His disorder has not kept him from attending community college and he is living a full life.

​

One of my fears, of course, was whether he would survive. When he was first diagnosed, TS was thought to be a rare disorder, and little was known. My research included the idea that children with it would not live past their fifth birthday. Thankfully, that was outdated info, or rather much had changed since it was written though not publicized. But for me, every jerking arm movement reminded me of the possibility he would not survive.