Why you should write your life story

Listen. There is no such thing as an ordinary life. rnThink of your own moments of high drama. Take any room full of people, or a busload, or just a group of villagers at a community meeting around a battered dining table, and every single person there will have a powerful story inside them. rnYou know that already, for your own memory is loaded with your upsets and triumphs, your agonies and thrills. Sometimes we share them with others. Often we don’t. We just live through them and then tuck them away inside. They may be warming memories, or festering ones. rnPerhaps now is the time to write at least some of them down. You realise it might be useful, amusing, rewarding, confirming or affirming for you to do this for yourself. You can do it, put the pages away, bring them out now and again to look back at, maybe laugh over (or cry) over, or maybe realise how very far you’ve come since your early days. rnOr perhaps you’d like to record your life and times as a handsome document to pass on to loved ones. With the pace of life changing so fast, it’s ever more important that we write now about what our lives are like today, because very soon (as in tomorrow!) it will be history. rnAnother reason to write: shouldn’t you be dead by now? rnBy the time we get to midlife most of us will have survived something that probably would have killed us in years gone by. Don’t think it doesn’t apply to you because you’ve not had a major accident or illness. Before the 1940s just a small wound could lead to death, as there was no way to treat infection (other than using traditional remedies) until powdered penicillin was developed early in World War II. rnModern medical advances have made it possible for us to recover from all sorts of disasters. Look back at your life and you may realise that had you been born 100 years ago, your days would have been short. I’d be dead, for instance, felled 15 years ago by a septic gall bladder . One of my daughters would have died in pregnancy three years ago if a severe problem had not been picked up 10 weeks before her due delivery date. No, wait a minute – she’d have died of peritonitis in her mid-teens. rnMy husband would not have made it to kindergarten had he not been pulled through scarlet fever as a baby. One of his sisters did die in infancy, doomed by a malformed oesophagus that these days can be easily fixed by surgery. rnWe’re all so fortunate to have made it this far! It’s just another reason why our all-too-lucky lives deserve to be recorded. rnSo begin. Don’t just think about it. Start. rnYou’re saying, “But where do I start?” And, “I haven’t got time.” And, “It’ll take for ever.” Before you’ve even picked up the pen or opened a new file, I can feel your fear. rnHere are my answers.rnStart and go on with what excites you (ignoring any boring bits) because the excitement will keep you going. rnYou do have time because everyone has 10-minute time slots to play with. And that’s all you need. rnIt won’t take for ever because writing in short bursts will build your story file fast. As long as you pay attention to it a few times a week – even once a week – you’ll create something substantial in very quick time. And the size of your file is totally up to you. Who says you have to write a whole book? Short and crisp beats long and ponderous every time.