My Thesis Introduction

I’ve been thinking a lot about transitions, about how one thing follows another, about what comes next. And it seems to me that they’re never neat, never tidy, never what I expect them to be. Sometimes the fulcrum on which life pivots is long and slow, a gradual movement from one stage to another. But other times change is balanced on a moment, a tiny, sharp, jarring moment.

I started many of the essays in this thesis before I became a mother, something so unexpected, so utterly catastrophic, that it made everything before seem so small, so insignificant, so self-centered. I suppose that’s what parenthood does to most people. The problem is that my concerns have changed, and as such, so has my writing.

I kept thinking that I could retrace my steps through my work in order to make it make sense in the light of my current life. In some cases I think I’ve done that. In others, I’m not sure.

Because my life is messy and because my conception of myself is also messy, it stands to reason that a memoir of my life is going to be messy. In this collection, I’m wrestling with who I am and how I got here. There are some answers, and there are new questions. In the end, I hope, it’s a good story.

***This has since been totally revised!