The Meaning of Maggie: Prologue–Chapter 4 Short Name

If you don’t know, a memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing that examines the meaning of the author’s life during a specific moment in time. I’m writing about my eleventh year on this earth because it was the most important year of my WHOLE life.

I still have something to say. And that’s why I’m writing this for prosperity or posterity or propensity, all of which I will look up once we get home.

I still have something to say. And that’s why I’m writing this for prosperity or posterity or propensity, all of which I will look up once we get home.

Your metaphorical bravery tank can run dry. But it’s up to you to fill it back up again. To muster all the courage you can.

I glared back at her. "Be nice to me. It’s my birthday.”

"Happy birthday, Mags. You look so much older. More distinguished.”

I’m in a dividend reinvestment plan. I’m making money as we speak.

"Come on! I’m a Wall Street tycoon! I need caffeine!”

I had saved it from the pit of Mom’s closet last November while on a mission to uncover my Halloween candy stash. My candy stash that mysteriously disappeared while I was in the throes of a mini Snickers mini coma.

I took notes while he told us all about the beat. Busting local political corruption. Uncovering scandals plaguing Little League baseball.

No magnifying glass? No trench coat? Weird. They were probably in his car with his wiretapping kit.

And why was the stereo cranked all the way up? It was so loud it felt like an actual zeppelin was crashing through the roof.

I’d been so overwhelmed that morning I hadn’t noticed something so different about Dad: He was home.

A family meeting? On my birthday? But what about cake and presents and everyone giving speeches about how great I was? What kind of inauguration into being eleven was this?

Mom broke ice cubes into two glasses and mixed the formula parents love: ¾ bad stuff and ¼ Coca-Cola. She carried the concoctions into the living room and then Dad started time traveling.

It was always infuriating and it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t nice and it wasn’t right to keep things from your children.

He seemed so happy as he relived his wayward youth, story by story.

First of all, that’s not even possible because just as much of the world is in front of me as is behind me because that’s just how geography works.
He could tell I was skeptical.

I wanted to be president and I wanted to be rich, not necessarily in that order.

As much as I wanted to retire for the evening, it was my civic duty to make a wish. And while there wasn’t any scientific evidence, I believed with all my heart that the world progressed one wish at a time.

And this first bell was even more special because I was in a whole new school in a whole new grade with whole new kids. It was a new beginning, a blank slate, a manifest destiny.

I loved Sandra Day O’Connor mostly because she was super smart and partly because she wore a robe all the time and that seemed both regal and comfy.

In third-period Advanced Science, we picked out our goggles for the year and I chose a pair with an extra-long strap to accommodate my brain getting bigger and bigger.

And lunch was the best ever because I got a whole table all to myself so I spread out my notebooks and went to town on a stack of syllabi.

By the time I finished my PB&J, zebra cakes, and fruit snacks, I’d also finished writing down every important due date in my datebook and highlighting them in their correlating subject colors.

The most beautiful boy I’d ever seen sat down in front of me. Or maybe he wasn’t beautiful but he was definitely cute. You know, cute for a boy who wasn’t a dignitary or royalty or something.

I didn’t know if I felt like I was in love. Yet I didn’t have any scientific evidence to the contrary.

Then an acoustic guitar met a harmonica and made music.

"On our first date, I showed up walking on my hands. I just knew it would blow her away. But I never thought her dad would answer the door. But he did and when it creaked open, all I saw were old man loafers.”

It also wouldn’t hurt if he came from a significant amount of family money.

And she worked at a hotel which couldn’t be that hard because there were beds to nap in everywhere and famous people to do famous things with. If I worked there I would have jumped up and down on beds for a few hours then I’d probably hobnob with someone like Nelson Mandela and we would order room service and solve world peace over pancakes.

Usually I would have been beside myself about missing a day of school considering I didn’t even miss school when I was sick, which was seldom because I took twice the recommended daily dose of Flintstones vitamins.

I reached for a plate from a giant stack and plotted my plan of attack. But suddenly my mission was diverted when Mom put the plate back on the stack.

We sat next to a gaggle of ladies lost in a blur of Spanish.

On the car ride home, I fought sleep with thoughts of everything Mom did without exploding. I mean, spontaneous combustion is a real thing because it’s in the dictionary.