What if I’m in the middle of it?

I turned fifty last October and to celebrate I ran a marathon. I thought I was running the marathon to prove to myself that aging is no big deal and that I was just getting started in life. That’s a partial truth. After the race, the day after Christmas to be exact, I realized that I was also running to prove that I was worthy of my mother’s legacy. That’s crazy.

The morning after Christmas I was whispering with my husband in Tiana’s dining area, trying to not wake our sleeping daughters. I began sharing with him that I was reading a book which made me uncomfortably introspective.

As I spoke it was like the words tumbling out of my mouth were forming the thoughts, instead of the other way around. I was mentally driving in reverse.

Hearing my own strange words while staring at a string of twinkling Christmas lights wrapped on a ceramic gazelle’s head must have hypnotized me. Seizures come in many forms. I whispered, “I have always felt like I wasn’t enough.”

Then I rambled a little trying fervently to connect those verbal dots diffusing above that elegant animal’s head. I knew something within me was bubbling up, “and in some way, I have been trying to prove my worthiness to carry on mom’s name.” Silence is sneaky.

I had left teaching, changed careers, experienced failures, lost confidence, earned an MBA, finished a marathon, began writing(scares the crap out of me) and was named a 2016 UN Women’s Global Champion all within three years. And I was anxious about how to top everything!

I am sharing this because I know I am in the middle of my story and can’t remain here. When I was a middle school teacher I told the kids to just write from the middle “Don’t try to make sense of it yet, just start in the middle and you’ll find your way.” So I am trying to learn in reverse and take my advice. It’s scary to not know where you are going.

I still feel the pressure to be extraordinary so that I can be worthy of mom’s memory. Good God how? Did you know Ljubica? She was a child of WWII, witnessing Nazi murders with six year old eyes. She was one of a handful of who escaped genocide in her village, losing family members and friends. Her life was a desert -she planted seeds of perseverance in grit and watered them with her tears. She defiantly grew her garden to life. Her fragrance perfumed our lives with the smell of baking bread and sautéing onions with paprika.

You see my dilemma? The truth is that I am terrified of finishing her story. I have journal bundles stashed in drawers and folders saved on this laptop. Her beautiful sixteen year old face is to the left of my teacup waiting. I want everyone to know her. I want everyone to know Ljubica. And I am afraid that I can’t tell her story in a way to fully honor her. I’m in the middle of two stories. I better start writing. She’d tell me to stop crying and get to work.