This Is Part of Our Narrative

So many defining moments, so many poor decisions, but each one has put me where I am today, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I often wish I could take photographs with my mind to capture a moment and remember it forever. 

I knew exactly what she meant, too. There have been some times when I've stepped back and thought, "This is my life. This is what it is all about." Many times they are just random life moments but they are, as you said, "part of what makes me who I am."

This is such an awesome concept. To think about certain moments, defining moments, takes on a new meaning of what your life consists of and where you might be headed because of this BIG  and dramatic moments. 

My moments would be when I left home for college, graduated from college and asked my husband for financial help paying half of our household bills. Those are a few key moments in my life where I knew I was no longer a kid anymore. I'm an adult now. And at 24, I'm still learning there is so much more to being an adult and responsibilities than what I have now. 

I've never really thought about defining moments before, at least not in the way I have since reading this book. I could tell you the turning points of my life without hesitation: when my grandmother died when I was 14. When I got my first newspaper job. When I became a mother. And then there are many smaller moments that shaped me even more. Though looking at it now, I am not sure that I like that my personal narrative has been so vividly shaped by births and especially deaths in my family, but it has. I hope that in the grand scheme of things my narrative becomes more shaped by action and intention.

For me, it's easy to point to my interfaith marriage and make that THE defining point of my narrative, but when I step back, I see that it's much larger than that. I have been blessed to have a number of interesting and different friendships that go beyond what's expected, and even in my "normal" friendships, I've had moments where things have gone way outside of what's expected. I hope that my real narrative is to be constantly building bridges where others have burned them.

I struggled with that part. I lost a child and at the moment it seems like that is all there is. This loss, this emptiness, this longing. But I have other children and I don't want them to look back one day and say they lost a brother and a mother that day.

I enjoyed those moments where Claire made a point of saying this was part of her narrative. It's amazing to look back on your life and realize what moments are those that define us or shape our future. Leaving my husband was a huge one. Moving out on my own, after staying with my mom for a year...that was the next huge one. Deciding to have a baby at 19 was one of the biggest as well.

I love the tie from the book to your personal narrative.  I found myself thinking of this when I read the book, but you put it into words for me.

What I realized about my personal narrative when reading the book is that sometimes you go through loss and the associated stages of grief even without a physical death.  Death of an important relationship was what I kept going back to when reading this book.

Thanks for sharing your insights.

I suppose there have been so many all-encompassing moments in my life that I tend not to subscribe to the minor moments.  I embrace them when I have them and let them go.  My life has been defined by overwhelming moments and if I were to write a memoir, those would definitely be the focus.  They have molded me, changed me, made me the woman I am today.  The minor moments have saved me and brought me peace so I pay attention to them, the turning of the leaves on my dogwood every fall, or the first time my daughter wore a dress that she had picked out with a light in her eyes.

It's true that I do have my "public" narrative and my "private" narrative; sometimes they cross, sometimes not...

I really loved your insight and have continually loved your insight on all of these posts. I don't think I have ever consciously thought of my narrative before either but I know that it would definitely include moving to Illinois in the middle of high school, going away to college, marriage, the birth of my son and I'm sure lots more to come. I can look back and see how all those moments, and the way I have handled them, have helped define me for good or bad. Hopefully more good. 

When I was 17 I was already in my first year of university and my parents were in the middle of a divorce. The judge ruled that since I was away at school neither of my parents were legally or financially responsible for me anymore, even though I was still a minor. So there I was, not old enough to be able to purchase my own phone service or sign a lease doing both of those things. It was the oddest sort of disconnect where I didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere or had a home anymore.

I actually caused/entrenched some pretty serious abandonment issues that I spent the next several years trying to work through.

It's funny, most of the moments of my life that really define me are small, every day moments.  Little images, of myself over the years, intertwined with other people's stories.  Nothing dramatic but meaningful nonetheless.

Oops.  I thought I commented on this before.  And in case you're wondering, it was a brilliant, witty and concise comment, too.

I have so many moments in my narrative that it's less a narrative and more an oddessy.  It runs the gamut from moving days as a kid to starting new schools to Halloween parties with Jenny Mayo (oh, how I wonder what happened to her) to "stealing" a friends Jolly Rancher lip balm and giving it back 2 minutes later because I felt guilty to choosing college to car accidents to my dating life and marriage to children and therapies.  Where do you stop?  Fortunately I have enough good to focus on rather than everything being a grief that dogs us day to day.

I fell in love with this book! I love how Claire wove her story together by weaving her past and present together so effortlessly. I admire how her experiences, heartbreaking as they were, shaped her as a person and an author. Her story is genuine, authentic and fresh. I am recommending this to everyone I know!

I call those moment Holy Moments, it's when I look around my life and think this is it, I've made this, done this or am living this, I need to recognize this moment for whatever it means, good or bad these things define me...I have a lot of those moments lately with my youngest sons, the last of the brood growing up fast--but I can recall other moments which define me-driving to the hospital when my father died--the day I became a single mama--a day spent mindlessly following my youngest with a camera-all life defining for me

It's hard not to think of the moments in my life when someone close to me died while reading this book. I frequently found myself remembering the moments spent with my grandfather in the hospital, watching him struggle for breath and thinking every one was his last. That also made me think of how I came to be close to him in the first place - and I think those are the moments in my narrative that I want to remember. But they will forever also be tied to the other.

i found this part of the book to be endearing. i loved that claire recognized the events in her life that would become highlights, whether positive or negative. it made me skim back through my own life and be able to recognize those important moments... the moments that would end up as a big dot with a note attached if i were to create a timeline of my own life. 

I loved this aspect of the books also. I thought often while reading her story that though we've had drastically different upbringings, we had such similar experiences. 

My personal narrative... Texas, the birth of my daughter, the birth of my son, the miscarriage of twins, Arizona.  I agree with @pyjammy.  The good and the bad.. it all goes together.

Reading this book really has made me think about those life altering moments before they happen. It is like I am more aware that I am a section of my life that I am going to look back on many times in the future and reflect on. Maybe it is because my chilren or young or maybe because I finally feel at almost 30 I'm growing in to myself and finally figuring out who I am.....I love books that make you think :)

I have so many important moments in life. Choosing to go to boarding school in high school. Living abroad in college. Losing my father at 23. Completing marathons. Giving birth to triplets. I wouldn't even want to change the bad things, because what if it meant my life wouldn't have led to my children? Not good.

Hm. There are so many. Making the decision to move out of my childhood home at eighteen to skip college and party while my mother fought brain cancer (unbeknownst to me) was definitely one of them. Meeting my now-husband was a life-changer. Can't imagine what things would be like if it hadn't been for him - not that they'd be so bad, they'd just be radically different. The birth of both of my children. There are tons and tons. 

There are so many moments in my life that are part of my personal narrative. However, I think the moment I finally realized I "grew up" would be at the forefront. I was engaged to a guy nobody liked, debating postponing the wedding and I finally just said, you know what, screw it. We broke up and there was a huge long drawn out break up that followed. I had to do it alone. Mom and Dad couldn't fix the mistake I made, I had to. It has forever shaped the way I handle things as an adult. It made me the person I am today.

Personal narrative is something that I think a lot about in my life. Blame it on the english degree or what have you, but to me there is always a story spooling out when I look at my life, pivitol moments that seem like landmarks all on their own. I understand the events of my life are part of that, but for me it is the quiet moments of contemplation that really make it true. Those moments when you are sat with a cup of coffee and a dream, turning over the pennies in your mind and finding that you are different than you had been. It can be the grown up smirk on your child's face, the sound of a long ago song you once loved, or just the innate sense that you, somehow, are growing. I think those are the moments that make you work backwards and see the narrative stretching out before you. Claire's book does that as well, going backwards from now and linking together all the big events with those gossamer quiet moments, or revelations of growth and change that she hadn't seen before. Those links are what made this book come alive for me.

I have never thought of my life in terms of narratives, but this book made me more aware of those moments. I may not have conciously done it, but I do have in store all the little narratives, stories that I tell my family and friends over and over again. But when I think back of which stories had more impact in my life, the number gets pared down quite a bit. Personally, I remember those times that made me change how I am as a person... and now that I think back on them, I realize my husband is always a part of those narratives. That makes me glad.

While Claire shared these big moments in her narrative, I think for most people, it is the smaller bites of life that make up our personal remembrances.  The smell of favorite meals cooking in the kitchen, the way a room lights up at a certain time of day, holidays spent with family - I guess most of my personal remembrances occur at home, in the quiet moments with family.

I understand the concept of personal narrative well. I consider some of the moments of my own personal narrative those that I look back on and "visit" with the self that I was at that moment in my history. The first of these moments happened on my fourth birthday when I looked into the mirror in my Mom's room and thought to myself, "So this is what being four looks like." Often I think about that four year old, looking at her through aged, and experienced eyes appreciating all that she was at four and knowing that that first moment in my personal narrative was only the beginning of a life time of them. 

I especially appreciated the moments Claire shared as her personal narratives. The little and but-for-the-narrative unnoticed moments that spoke the loudest to me! What a book!

Having lost my mom to cancer just a year ago, I found this book hard to read. I could identify with so much of what Claire wrote. I wasn't ready for the emotions that it evoked. I was fortunate in that I was able to care for my mom right up until the end. I don't know if I could've handled being away like Claire was. Even so, I look back at the things that weren't. What if we had more time to talk about things? What if we weren't such private people? Would we have been able to share our feelings? Did I do the best I could? I'll never know. What I do know is that that moment or series of moments, changed my life. I'm now less self absorbed and more about opening my heart to see what I can do for others. I now take time to nurture the relationships in my life. I make time to volunteer with my dog as a therapy dog team in the hopes that I will be able to make one more person's life a little bit easier.