It occurred to me when searching my blog for information on my life last year (yes, this is occasionally the most efficient method) that I had gone 41 days without documenting my life in 2017 with the exception of my grandmother’s eulogy.

A whole January passed and I gasped at how much happened and how much of it exists in the folds of my brain coils only.

January in bullets:

• I started meditating using the app Headspace, and just like a member of a new club, I thought, “I found the answer to everything.” I even got my son into it – and allowed him to pay for the monthly subscription after he finished his first free 10 sessions. I, on the other hand, finished the ten sessions and then aborted, finding inadequate excuses for failing to find ten minutes to breathe each day.

• At the end of 2016, I was excited to tell the Year (and our new President Elect) to FOAD. I was hoping 2017 was going to be filled with less death and drama for our family. Then my grandmother died. I chalk up my grandmother’s death to 2016 since this is when she took the fall, from which she’d never get up. I spent the days between December 7th to January 25th Writing a eulogy in my head, which I delivered on January 26th.

• I started a reading “challenge” because so much of last year was spent writing, I found it incredibly hard to fit in substantial reading as well. As a Writer, I felt like this was an integral part of my job which I was not doing. This year I’m vowing to do this better and hope to read at least 24 books; so far I’m up to number 5.

• My sister visited and we went to a Korean scrub and massage and consequently, I had a back and shoulder injury for two weeks and counting.

• Immediately after the new year, I wanted to take forced relax time, which I found incredibly difficult, but I spent a few days doing adult coloring with glitter gel pens my husband bought me as a “congratulations on finishing your writing project” gift.

• I played and lost the Dear Evan Hansen lottery every single day since its inception. I caved and purchased tickets to the 2017 Winner of Best Musical [YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST], which we’ll see on May 23rd. My 14-year-old son, on the other hand, did win a lottery at school to see the show, and is seeing it next week! (and for free!)

• I read Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, which was grossly depressing. Writers confessing in engaging essays how 99% of novel writers still need to “keep their day job.” Because of this, I bucked up, revised my resume, and have dived back into the corporate job hunt, entering the new phase in my life I’m dubbing Life 3.0
• I’m not giving up my dreams. I’m still pursuing a literary agent and the eventual publishing of “Life Clubs: An Organic Deconstructed Autobiography” or “Life Clubs: What You Have in Common With a Russian Immigrant Writer Married to a Clown.”

I was recounting my 365 writing project to someone the other day who empathetically claimed to relate to my project because they had taken a photo a day. I laughed thinking it wasn’t a fair comparison. How could you equate a photo a day to an essay, a story of your life?

Nonetheless, I quieted my judgement and thought, well, maybe if I don’t want to commit to another 365 writing project, BUT I could snap a photo a day to document my life in a different way. Let an image serve as the perpetual trigger of memories from a day. Let those loose, unformatted words which will accompany my Instagram snap, quiet my annoying inner voices persistently yelling at me to “Write It Down NOW!” All the time. Every minute. Because when I write it, I solidify it and reinforce that it happened; immortalizing it. I make my memories linger longer and louder.

For now, I will use my pictures as communication to fill public eyes while I keep my words more private.