Laurel Dunaway
Journal Entry
I’ve been thinking a lot about writing my life story, with some of the inconsequential parts taken out. Dr. Miller says I could write it as a novel or a screenplay—that either would do. The point is just to get it out. Sometimes after James is asleep, I take my notebook down to the living room, put on a pot of tea, and I write. Usually I write about grown-up me, present day stuff, but Dr. Miller asked me to write from the perspective of my younger self. It seemed weird when I first tried it. But Dr. Miller taught me something. She taught me the importance of backstory. She says it’s easy to predict the future once you can clearly see the past. She says that most people can’t, and that’s why so many of us just end up repeating the same mistakes.
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The li
