I expected 1997, the last year of my fifties, to be a monumental year in my life.  So I decided to keep a journal and I wrote in it almost every day. For years, that journal has been tucked away on a high closet shelve along with pictures of our ancestors.

Reading it this week was a revelation.  What a year!  Jeremy left to spend a year in Chile advising indigenous Chileans about how best to sell their empanadas; Seth left to start a new job in NYC.  Having had both nearby for two years, it was a huge loss for us.

But for me, even more than my transitioning to a challenging new position at my job that year, 1997 was the year of the wrinkle.  One day I wrote about looking in the mirror and finding that parentheses had appeared between my eyebrows.  Another time I wrote that the right side of my chin had “caved in”.  (Nothing compared to my current face)

Astonishingly, I had forgotten about serious women in our sons’ lives that year.  Long forgotten by me… I am wondering if the kids think about their loves of so many years ago.

Perhaps even more astonishing, I wrote a lot about losing sleep over challenges that I don’t remember.  I even wrote about Peter’s being mad at me for something.  In my memory, Peter was never mad at me.

So much forgotten.  So much fun to revisit.