When my experience defies conventional thought, I write a book…
I began writing my next book, Speed Bumps – And Other Impediments to Life in the Fast Lane (Don’t you just love the title?!), long before I had any reason to write To Sam, With Love – A Surviving Spouse’s Story of Inspired Grief.
Well, life happened, and Speed Bumps got put on hold for years. Then even more life happened when I lost my husband Sam due to terminal cancer, and To Sam, With Love was begun and completed before I ever got back to writing Speed Bumps.
The irony is, Speed Bumps could very well benefit from the calamitous loss that inspired To Sam, With Love. They say everything happens for a reason. Maybe Speed Bumps was meant to be finished after I’d lost the love of my life.
You see, Speed Bumps is about the impatience, blow-ups, self-involvement, and generalized angst that characterized the approximately 60 years I spent as a type A personality. Here’s a little spoiler: My favorite chapter so far is “Road Rage 101.” Another spoiler: I describe the annoying affront to my sensibilities when ordering an ice cream cone and having to hold the treat in one hand while struggling to pay for it with the other hand; why wasn’t payment collected when I had both hands available to fish the money out of my purse?! Aargh!!! Yeah.
So Speed Bumps is serious in one sense, and lightheartedly self-deprecating in another. In any event, I think it could be made “weightier” by a chapter on how a type A surviving spouse dealt with her husband’s illness and death. After all, can you think of a greater “speed bump” than losing one’s beloved husband or wife?
Even while contemplating a chapter on the loss of Sam, which may be difficult, I’m looking forward to finishing Speed Bumps. I find it entertaining to poke fun at myself. And after writing an entire book about Sam’s illness and death, it will feel good to be entertained.
I’ve always liked the idea of writing about my experiences as a type A because other books on the personality type are likely written from a clinical perspective. Speed Bumps is all about a real-life type A’s trials and tribulations. And I’m hoping other type As will relate to it and discover they are not alone. Conversely, type Bs who have type As in their lives will perhaps read the book and understand their type As a bit better while discovering they too are not alone.
Let it be so. And may Speed Bumps entertain its readers as it has entertained its author.
It’s an obsession! I need my home to pack a wow! I always have. But it wasn’t until I was in my 50s that I had the means to make it so. And even then, having amassed the funds required, how would I get there given I lacked interior design training and possessed little artistic talent? It seemed the dream would always remain just that…a dream.
I’ve played violin since age 7, and performing in orchestras, chamber groups and quartets has enriched my life immeasurably. I count my lucky stars that when we were kids, my cousin Judy, four years my senior and whom I worshipped, took up the violin. I had to do everything Judy did, so of course I begged my parents for violin lessons. Judy only played for a year, and I stayed for the rest of my life.
My dad was not one to dole out insightful advice. Indeed, he was far more likely to grab any opportunity to mindlessly, and tongue-in-cheek, offer up his favorite old standby: “Suffering is good for the character!”
