The problem is actually Ticketmaster, but we don't need to discuss that right now.
Yesterday, November 18, 2022, I released my memoir titled Start Here: The Raw and Honest Journey of a Nomad in her Twenties.
It has been a six-year-long process. Writing, feeling, crying, laughing, drafting, sending, re-drafting, printing, using red ink to re-work... many cold Minnesota mornings with jet black coffee and fingers just typing away (sometimes, I kid you not, with fingerless gloves).
And just this morning, I downloaded the Kindle version.
And then, as I'm sure you know what's coming next (I am super predictable), I shamed myself for not writing it differently.
I should have been less... less needy, less insecure about myself, less, less, less.
To offset that "less," I should have also been more... more confident, more committed in my relationships, more, more, more.
But that's exactly what this book is about - it's the opposite of social media - it's reality.
While I know we all think we're portraying the "reality" of our lives on social media, we just ain't. They are snapshots of the best moments and sometimes the worst, but not a comprehensive review of anything that's actually happening in our lives.
All we can do is scroll and wish for things and relationships we don't have. It's like the screen on our phones is this glass, and we're all on the outside looking in, wishing, and waiting.
I wrote Start Here because it's the book I wish I had in my twenties.
It's a letter to myself - rewriting the story as it's told in my own mind - and realizing that we all make mistakes. We fail. Sometimes not even forward. We just fail.
But we learn from those failures, be it relationships or attempting to make deviled eggs for the first time (my aunt is fantastic at this, and I've never attempted). Sorry to disappoint, but this book has no stories about deviled eggs.
There are, on the contrary, stories about:
- mountain-climbing fails in Canada (that was a DOOZY)
- confronting white privilege
- wrestling with Christian doctrine
- what is yoga, anyhow
- dismantling my fear about marriage
- a border-line eating disorder that manifests itself as restrictive and then binge eating
- my fears of never seeming normal or to quite "fit in" with the others
- dangerous travel stories that nobody should ever recreate
- tragic loss and heartbreak
All of that.
And more.
Could be yours for just $5.99.
**But don't wait. If you call now, you could get this deviled-egg container for free with your purchase.**
I was speaking with a woman the other day about the integrity of relationships. I shared it's my fear in this age of social media (is Twitter even a thing anymore, thanks ELON), that the ease of entertaining others - it was just a flirty text message it meant nothing - is the demise of modern marriages and relationships altogether.
She agreed - and her and her husband have a rule - that their cell phones get put away at 9:00 pm each night. She said relationships were so much easier when the telephone was stuck to the wall.
So many things are shifting in our world, moving faster than we can track, and I feel way too much to keep quiet about all of it.
This book is my response to no longer remaining silent.
Rated M for Mature.
Thank you to everyone who has already pre-ordered and ordered!!!!
Book release dates in MINNESOTA will be shared soon.
Much love,
Em
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