Last One is a Rotten Egg

You probably remember the saying as a kid.

And you probably never wanted to be last, especially when it meant you could be first, or at least second, and lose the rotten egg title. Last meant you were somehow not on the list or that your parents really did find you on the doorstep in a basket.



Photo by: oxcnpxo, courtesy of Flickr

But let's get serious.

We often take this saying into our adulthood. It's almost as if we have to prove ourselves to ourselves, to our parents, or maybe even our siblings.

I'm not that rotten egg; I'm never going to be last. And so we push ahead, faster than we really have strength, and give little or no time for that reflection we really need.

The other day I was talking to a friend about reflection but was calling it writing in a journal. She said, "But I'm not a writer." I couldn't convince her that a person didn't need to be a writer to write in a journal and that it would be helpful for posterity to read a little about her after she was gone. I explained how it just wasn't enough for me to know someones name, who they married, and when they died, I wanted to know about their life.

But my friend wasn't too interested. My friend didn't want to keep a journal, at least not now. And it would have been fruitless to keep prodding her on to think differently about it. Perhaps she thought it was too much work, maybe there were other things on her mind that she felt took precedence. What I know is that she wasn't a rotten egg in my eyes just because journaling appeared to come last in her life.

A month or so ago I placed my novels on the back burner until after the holidays. It just didn't make sense for me to write when I could be thinking and doing other things. Perhaps you might think I'm a rotten egg. Letting my writing go like that.

But I hope not.