I’m taking “Immersion In Publishing” this semester for my MFA program, and it requires an internship. I was connected with Modern Memoirs, Inc., a book publisher in Amherst, Massachusetts. I began this past week.
Modern Memoirs works with clients to self-publish books that tell their personal story. It could be the story of their own life, their family, their business, or maybe an ancestor’s story. They provide support at all levels, from interviewing subjects and writing the book to editing an already written story. They facilitate the entire process - the words, photos, book layout and design, and printing. They do beautiful work.
I was asked to write a bio for the company’s website. It was an opportunity for me to look back on my professional life and follow the path that brought me here, in this new beginning. I wrote, “Currently, my boys are in their junior year of high school and junior year of college, and I’m at a turning point in my career, and in my life as a whole. I’m inspired by my boys, as I watch them go out into the world, knowing themselves and following their own unique paths. I see myself doing the same thing, only it’s happening during the second half of life.”
And that’s what this time feels like - beginning again. I’m going through a process that was meant to happen when I was a young adult. A do-over.
When I started trying to shift things for myself years ago, I told my yoga teacher, “I just want to be the same person wherever I go. I want the inside to match the outside.” I remember that conversation so clearly because I felt frustrated and confused - why I wasn’t able to do that?
I’ve learned this about shifting emotional patterns- it’s simple, but it’s not easy. It takes a solid connection to yourself. And if you don’t have a sturdy sense of yourself, well, my friends, that’s a problem. And that was my problem.
Without a sturdy sense of yourself, you feel groundless, and you have to look outward to try to find some solid ground in other people. Your sense of yourself depends on others - taking care of them, making them happy, tending to their problems. Your nervous system and attention get wired this way. You feel emotions through them. You get so connected to the needs of others that you lose sight of your own. Your power lives outside of you.
When I look back at what I’ve done professionally, it looks like I’ve done so much - so many beginnings. And yes, I have, but it feels as if I didn’t fully experience it. It all sort of floated outside of me somehow, separate. It’s a foggy, untethered state to be in, this feeling, that your life has not been your own.
This fall, I made the conscious decision to give myself some time to be alone, quiet, and slow. And that has been such a gift. With nothing and no one to hold on to, I had no choice but to experience myself. I learned how to ground myself physically and that has helped me immensely.
One day in the stillness, I heard, When you’re your authentic self, that’s when you’re closest to God. I felt a deep peace. Yes, that’s true. That’s right.
I’m beginning to look at my writing in a different way. I’m showing up differently out in the world. I can feel that. A do-over. But this time, I feel supported. There’s a voice I can access now, inside of me, guiding me out into the world. I feel young and vulnerable, but that’s okay. I’m here with myself now.
I was talking to a friend about starting this new internship, and I told her I felt a bit anxious. I said, “I’m just going to try to be myself.” “That’s all you can do,” she said.
Simple, but not easy.
*Here's a link to the Modern Memoirs website (and my bio) if you’d like to check out their work- https://www.modernmemoirs.com/meet-the-staff
Note: I’m currently enrolled in the Creative Nonfiction Writing MFA program at Bay Path University. This semester, I’m writing blog posts based on prompts for my Publishing class. I’ve decided to fold these assignments into Pam’s Daybook. It fits.
Happy for you! 👏
Congratulations with your do-over Pam! They are lucky to have you and your creative/perceptive writing.