Our Lives...in 100 Words

I found a really cool article in one of my fashion magazines a while back. I don’t remember whether it was Vogue, InStyle, or Cosmo, but they had a cool article on women who had started companies, broken into professional sports, become scientists or teachers…you get the idea: women who were successful. They gave them all cocktail napkins and asked them to write out their biographies…in 50 words…exactly 50 words. I read them all and they were fantastic! So, I swiped the idea, as any good teacher is wont to do and presented the idea to my students.

I expanded the word count to 100, but held them to the “exact word count” standard. It is a rarity, as I believe most writing is much more organic than that, and shouldn’t be tied to such specificity, but for once, I decided to see what they could do. And, though I hate the term, as it’s all “educational-ese,” I modeled it for them. I wrote my own life story in exactly 100 words (Or, at least that’s what the word count button said.) and read it to them.

It went something like this:

Born in Dayton – Not my fault!
Raised in Idaho, yes, I love potatoes!
Have the perfect family, they steered me from behind.
Learned sewing from my Mama - Found Shakespeare via costuming.
Ran away to Seattle to costume the world.
Ended up homeless - learned a lot - wouldn’t change a thing.
Still can make a wicked cool Renaissance dress.
Bought fun sign -- Every life should have nine cats…I took it literally.
Ran away to join the Air Force - who knew they let people like me fly satellites?
Married three times - finally got it right - thank god he said “yes!”
Luckiest girl alive!

My students then proceeded to knock my socks off sharing what had happened to them during their 18 years of trampling over this mortal coil. Their success got me to thinking…

Why not do this for you as a couple? Since the deployment can take away valuable time spent together, why not encapsulate your relationship with your significant other so you can whip out your cocktail napkin whenever you’re feeling lonely and read about your journey together, so far, as a couple? The brevity forces you to think about your love bug in a slightly unusual way. His or her main personality traits stand out in stark relief to the background noise of the boredom during a deployment. I will now model (again, gag, still hate the terminology they teach you in “How to be an Educator 101.) this for you. I think it turned out kind of cool.

Testosterone and estrogen, damn, met with a bang!
The universe worked its magic, followed its advice…for once.
He cooks so I don’t have to -- cooks so he doesn’t have to eat my culinary attempts. :-)
When one gets road rage, the other finds a Zen moment.
We balance each other out. We argue when we have to, not very often.
Ridiculously intelligent left-brained engineer weds crazy right-brained English Prof.
Parachuting, gun-toting, marathon running - makes it look effortless.
Supportive, fun-loving, cocktail party-throwing, traveling partners…not usually a quiet moment in the house.
It’s a wacky, perfect-for-us, cockamamie love story for the ages…with cats!

Why don’t y’all try it and see what you come up with. Hopefully, you’ll remember all the reasons that, while you may not each be a perfect person, you’re still perfect for each other!

And, Baby, I left out the part about very bravely sucking up the biggest spider EVER with the vacuum cleaner. Now I’m scared to empty it out. Are you coming home soon? ;-)
(I didn’t want to waste that many of my 100 words explaining all that to you in the biography. So, I’m cheating the word count by posting it here. And, the carpets may be a little cat-haired by the time you get home. I'm not kidding about not using the vacuum cleaner again! Love you! And, as always, I'm still glad you said, "yes!")