After the show last night, which just happened to be an interview with my Publisher, I found myself thinking instead of sleeping!  This happens often.  But this was not random pondering about life as I drift off to sleep.  This was important.  Michelle said something important that I have not articulated very well, or at least as well as she did last night.

Everyone, yes, EVERY ONE OF YOU, has a story to tell about your life.  You should write it!  Write it even if all you do is (very carefully and lovingly since it is your life) place it in a box in the attic, garage, storage…  pick your place here.  Write it with your own words, your own feelings, thoughts, joy, pain, and even confusion and bad grammar and spelling.  Write it for your family.  Write it for your children or grandchildren.  Write it for the history of your time !  Your lifetime!

What we didn’t talk about last night was that with texting, social media and instant everything we now have for communicating we are losing our stories and our history.  We don’t write letters that are tied in ribbon and saved in shoeboxes.  So much of history is discovered in writing.  What parts of our lives will they tell in 75 years when we are gone?  Who will tell the future about us here in the past? Politicians?  Entertainers?  No one?

I hope that your story will be found an old box, or in a thrift stores (if they still call them that) or maybe some dusty attic.  I hope that these are treasured when they are found.

I hope that in 75 or 100 years they read the story of a survivor and think what a pioneer you were to actually write it down.  To be one of the first to talk about it even if only in pen and paper.

I believe that history teaches us how to move forward.  If there were mistakes made in the past they will never be corrected if they are kept secret.  Hard to move forward if you can’t figure out where you have been.

I would beg you to write your story if you were here in my kitchen tonight.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Don’t forget the joys and miracles they are so important.  If you want to really look at your life, this is a great way to do it.  It is safe.  It is private.  And in all that honest writing you will find the good parts too!

Dream Big, Live Large and Believe…   XOXO  Annie