Andrea J. Buchanan - Note to Self: 30 Women on Hardship, Humiliation, Heartbreak, and Overcoming It All

A s far back as I can remember, my father wrote little notes to himself about everything. They were reminders, really, little scraps of paper with nuggets of wisdom. This way, he could recall a thought or follow up on a half-baked idea or new creation. For a time he was an inventor, so ideas were his life, and he would not let one of them pass him by. Even his wardrobe functioned as a facilitator to his ideas. He would not wear shirts unless they had two pockets: one for his pens, the other for his scraps of paper. Function over fashion was his motto.

After the invention of sticky notes (someone elses brilliant idea), they became a staple in our home, perhaps more important than sugar or coffee or rice. They were everywhere, but most of them could be found on the kitchen table in a neatly organized row alongside the orange place mats and plastic fruit centerpiece. The notes were supposed to be relegated to his area of the table, but if they went unchecked they would creep toward my mothers, my three older sisters, or my place settings. A day didnt go by in which my mother wouldnt rightly complain about those damn notes. While she rejected this practice of his, I embraced it. As the youngest of four girls, it was a bond that my daddy and I shared. But I took it to another level: my notes were en vogue, beautifully penned on parchment paper (I think I even went so far as to laminate a few). Canvas inside a shadow box was probably my note de force. I gifted my husband one saying, My love guaranteed.

Let me be clear: I dont write lists. I hate them. Somewhere along the way a list came to represent structure, rigidity, and that perfect girl in class who had the color-coded markers for every day of the week. I write things down on scraps of paper, on Post-it notes, on beautiful stationery, and on my hand. I would have them everywherejust like my dadbut my husband hates clutter even more than my mother does. So he makes piles of all the scraps and puts them by the phone, on my desk, near my computer.

I curate famous quotes, paraphrases of famous quotes, raw emotion, friends quotes, snippets of phone conversations, ideas. To me they are like oxygen. I need them to breathe. A recent inventory yielded these gems:

You get what you want.

Receiving is Giving.

Have more faith than fear.

Breathe and breathe again.

Listen to your instinct. It just might save you from yourself.

Service is the rent we pay for living on the planet.

Dont forget to exercise and drink water.

Dream Big. You will have it all. You already do.

She has a free pass to get the fuck out of my life. (I threw that one away.)

I have collected countless scraps of wisdom, inspiration, insight, and empathy over the years. One day it occurred to me that a book of such reflectionsand the stories that surrounded themmight bring others the joy and comfort and occasional laugh that they bring me. I started to seek out stories that wouldnt fit on a Post-it but had final messages that could. Notes to self.

All of the stories were primarily about moments of redemption following what I call lifes Big Three: Humiliation, Heartbreak, and Hardship. However, as in real life, sometimes tough moments cannot be so easily compartmentalized, so I put some stories into a category I like to call Lifes Constant Complexities, which can mean anything from coming to terms with a professional setback to accepting the width of ones thighs.

We all have a story that helps define us, a piece of ourselves that reflects who we are today yet is somehow rooted in our past, perhaps holding us back. More often than not, we need to shed that outdated outer shellthat storyso that we may finally and fully move into the next phase of life with a lesson of wisdom firmly intact (and if you are like me, taped to a wall). So I asked my fellow contributors not only to share their stories but also to sum them up in a final note to self, something that a reader could scrawl on a Post-it and keep somewhere she could access for a quick dose of wisdom. What they came up with will inspire you.

Each woman in this book has a defining story from which she has moved to a new pinnacle of life, renewed and redeemed by the lessons she learned and will share with you. Punctuated by tears and laughter, these stories are full of incredible strength, invaluable knowledge, insurmountable odds, helpful survival instincts, amazing willpower, humiliation on a national level, and a hefty dose of humor. Through them, I have come to realize that no matter what life presentshowever unfair, ugly, or murky it may seemif you are willing, you can actually learn from the biggest of lifes challenges and find the light in the darkest of tunnels. And once you go through it, the lesson, the takeaway, your note to self, can act as a reminder, a place holder, a bookmark just in case you forget, for one moment, how amazing you are and how awesome the journey has been, even with its difficulties.

It seems only fair that I now join this community of women in this book and kick it off by telling my stories of the Big Three that have defined me, emboldened me, and taught me lessons worthy of places front and center on my wall.

My story of humiliation came early. I should state that we all have moments when we are humiliated, but I am talking about the one humiliation I could never forget, the Super Bowl champion of embarrassing moments (think Janet Jackson).

I grew up in Lewisville, Texas, a middle-class suburb of Dallas. While some kids spent their summer vacation at camps, on lakes, or, at the very least, at the community pool, I spent mine poring over Christie Brinkleys operating manual, How to Look Like a Model. I studied its glossy pages like a student preparing for my dissertation. I wanted to be a model, and not just for myself. There were many who deemed me beautiful, and I felt I owed it to them, too. At fourteen, I was five foot ten, 120 pounds, and wore a 34C bra. I had been voted both Sophomore and Junior Duchess. I knew my place amongst the jocks, nerds, and burnouts, and I enjoyed the view from up on high as I looked down on my adoring subjects. Senior year was primed to be a royal cakewalk to the ultimate crown, homecoming queen. At the time, this was serious business; signing each others yearbooks as we said our good-byes for summer vacation after junior year, we all knew the crown would be mine when we returned in the fall. My acceptance speech was all but written, and my glorious future was laid out before me like my homecoming cape: my star linebacker-boyfriend and I would get married after graduation and our first child was going to be named Rush, after the band. This was the road map of my life. And it was happening just as planned.