The Hazards of Building a Bildungsrosman

One of the weirdest things about writing a book about my early life, which is why I call this memoir a bildungsrosman, is that there are days when I’m channeling my elementary school self or my mother at 16 or my dad at 26. Somedays this is interesting, other days it’s plain devastating. Today falls under the devastating category and it’s like I just watched the goodbye scenes in Terms of Endearment: Ain’t no way I can hold back the tears pouring down my cheeks though I don’t notice them until I feel wet on my cheeks and even then assume the ceiling has sprung a leak. Metaphorically at least, this is not so far from the truth. It’s all coming down.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy