50 Books that have had a Significant Impact on My Life

I applaud we writers who continue to come back again and again, entering the arena regardless of the rejections. I applaud we who stay to throw our words into the ether.

One recent morning I had a reunion hangover and I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. The gathering I attended the night before was in honor of a retiring professor. It wasn’t a traditional reunion of a graduating class but it was a party with many alums from the same college reuniting to celebrate an influential man who made a significant impact on our lives.

In gatherings like this, I often feel occasional triggers or pangs of regret or stabs of comparison.

So, on the two-hour drive north, I did some therapeutic work.

I forget things. Many things. Like birthdays, that I am loved, writing Thank You notes, and that Icy Hot painfully burns my neck skin. But I have found one strategy that is remarkably effective in helping me remember.

I’m slowly coming to embrace these existential questions as a regular part of my experience, like my heartbeat or breathing air. It’s better this way, to simply accept their daily presence in my life rather than the anguished wrestling I often experience.