You can do it!

You’ve’ heard those words before. Whether it was learning to ride a bike, reading a “fat” and potentially challenging book, at any age, or getting back into the swing of things after a nasty fall or failure. The words come easily to someone who has done it, or not. Doing “it” is what you perceive it to be…hard or easy. So if I tell you, you CAN write a family history or your own memoir, it’s your perception that counts…obviously. Writing family history or your own, is a deeply personal undertaking. What if you get it wrong? What if your family doesn’t like it or agree with it? I’m here to tell you…you CAN’T get it wrong. It’s ultimately YOUR history, your perception of what life has been like and how you choose to put it together. My history is a mass of short stories, recorded memories and photos…tons of photos. It’s all preserved! It’s saved for eternity. While I’ve written countless stories of other people’s lives and accomplishments, mine is still piecemeal. I might get it wrong if I try to put it together as complete....but it's not complete until I die...I forgot that part. Yes, I need to tell myself…you can do it! And I have done it…just not the way I envisioned as final, or what “counts.” That I learned recently is basically because I’m female with a tendency to discount my abilities, or apologize for them or put someone else’s need ahead of my own. I’m reading Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In.” She is much younger than I and far more successful, but her observations about women’s tendency to be second fiddle in life are right on. But it also leans towards our beliefs, men or women, that something is beyond our reach or abilities. You CAN do it! You, whether male or female, can write or collect your family history. And you can’t do it wrong, because it’s YOUR history, what you know or remember. Let your family do their own history or offer corrections to yours. You know someone needs to do it, and that someone is you. You can collect family anecdotes and write them in a notebook. You can record them on tape, disk or video. You can paste pictures into a scrapbook and write the stories that go with them. And you can simply set at your computer and write all that you know…You CAN do it! Why? Because it needs to be done…or you risk being forgotten or the stories will be lost and you KNOW you can tell them right!