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Pondering my next book (yes, already)

“Mama, what’s the latest with your book?”

My son and I were cruising the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday morning, en route to watch my daughter play in a flag football tournament. Whenever we are in the car together for an extended period of time, he and I have great conversations—often kicked off by one of his sincere yet probing questions.

“Well, I’m still waiting to hear back from the publishing house. It’s been hard to wait. I’ve been thinking that maybe I need to start planning my next book so I can distract myself while feeling like I’m progressing my writing career. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a great idea!” He said. “Except didn’t you tell, like, your whole life story in your first one? What else do you have to write about?”

“My man, I’ve been asking myself that exact same question.”

But I have some ideas. I think I have more to say. I know I have more digging to do. Writing my first memoir manuscript shucked me open like an oyster. As raw as it made me feel, the process was also utterly empowering. I made connections I never would have made. I deepened my understanding about my most important and impactful relationships. I strengthened my self-awareness and deepened my well of self-compassion.

I want to keep going.

To that end, with my son’s help (the kids are home this week for February staycation and the cabin fever is getting real, y’all), I braved our arctic attic to dig out two moving boxes filled with my old journals. I journaled diligently, borderline obsessively, starting in middle school all the way into my 20s. My love of journaling hatched the idea that I wanted to publish a book someday. I have never reread my journals, except for a few excerpts while writing my first manuscript.

My gut is telling me it’s time. Time to reread them all.

My gut is telling me that I have another memoir in me, and that reading these journals is the key to figuring out the next story I want to share.

My gut is also a bit queasy at the thought of actually reading my adolescent and young adult thoughts, reliving my most cringe-worthy moments, putting myself back into my boy-crazy, perfectionist, insecure, people-pleasing skin. But also? What a gift these journals are. What a gift it will be to reconnect with my younger self on such an intimate level and offer her love, empathy, and kindness.

I have carted these journals around with me all these years, but I have never been ready to reread them until now. I am ready to honor the girl who wrote them by spending my time reading all of her words.

After all, that girl is the one that got me here. Because of the writing she did, my memoir manuscript is now on the desk of the publisher I most admire. I owe it to that girl to go back and hear her and see her and love her the way that she so yearned to be heard, seen, and loved. We’ll see what she has to say.

She has already given me one absolutely delightful surprise. As I unpacked the journals, I flipped each one open to see its start date so that I could arrange the books in chronological order. One book flipped open to an email I had completely forgotten that I’d received.

The email was from Neil deGrasse Tyson.

In July 2004, my stepdad, John, was dying of colon cancer. I didn’t remember that I’d bought a copy of Neil’s book The Sky is Not the Limit and somehow gotten it to his office with a request for him to inscribe it to John. John was a huge physics nerd, a huge fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and loved that my first job out of college was working as an educator at one of his favorite places in the world (and mine).

I texted the picture of the email to my mom, who found the book and sent me a photo of the inscription.

John died less than four weeks later.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. What else do these journals contain? What other long-lost memories will come searing back into my mind and heart?

I don’t know. I can’t even guess.

But I am ready to find out.