The Chapter I Skipped — A Writing Challenge
What I left out of my notebooks
Some of the handwriting in my old notebooks is getting hard to read. The words are mine. I once knew exactly what they meant. Something needed doing, a problem needed attention, or there was a detail I thought I should keep. Now, in places, my own handwriting leaves me guessing.
I wanted to write a book when I was about twenty-three. I was already married, with a life beginning to take shape around me. I wanted my children, relatives and friends to understand how I had lived — the choices I made, the people who mattered, and the things that did not go as planned. A book seemed like a way to tell those stories without having to repeat an entire lifetime to each person separately. They could go back to the pages whenever they wanted.
I tried keeping a diary. My working hours were long, and writing an entry every day was hard to keep up. I missed a day, then another. Eventually, I stopped.
A notebook was easier. I used the 555 notebooks, a brand that was very popular in those days. Back then, they were simply something I used to jot things down. I never imagined I would still be looking through them more than forty years later.
I could write when something needed recording. There was no need to account for every evening. So I kept making notes. And I kept intending to write the book.
There was a living to earn and a family to care for. Some decisions worked. Others sent me looking for another way. I kept telling myself I’d get back to the book one day.
More than forty years passed.
I still have some of those early notebooks. They contain parts of my life, but there is a lot they cannot tell me. I kept a record of what needed my attention. I left much less of a record of how it felt to be the person attending to it all.
That’s the part of the skipped chapter I keep thinking about now.
I can describe being twenty-three. I cannot quite write as the man I was at twenty-three. Too much has happened since then. I know how some of his choices turned out. He did not.
When I look back, I can explain a decision with the benefit of everything that followed. It is harder to recover the uncertainty before the decision, or the hope that made a particular choice seem worth trying.
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What would I have written if I had given myself a little more room on those pages?
Maybe the answer would be less tidy than the account I can give today. A younger person does not yet know which experiences will become lessons. He is still living through them.
When I write about my father, I remember him getting up at four in the morning to prepare rendang. I sometimes helped in the kitchen and complained about the hours. That memory has stayed. So has the wish that I could speak to him again.
But I cannot recover every conversation. I remember the meaning of some things he taught me without being able to repeat his exact words. Writing about him now means I have to recognise that difference.
I would like to have more of those ordinary days on paper. The details that did not seem worth recording then might be the ones I would most want to read now.
The life that filled those years is also the life I want to put into the book. My marriage, my children, the people who helped me, and the mistakes I had to learn from all belong there. I want to give them a fair account, including the parts I might handle differently today.
Coming back to writing means looking at those years more closely. A sequence of events is easier to put down than an honest explanation of what I understood at the time.
I want my family to know that I did not always have the answers. There were choices I made because they seemed the best I could manage then. They may see some of them differently. I hope the writing helps them understand how I reached them.
Some memories make me smile. Others bring back people I would like to talk to again. I am beginning with those, letting the details I remember lead me.
The book is taking shape now. It will carry the voice I have today, with all the years between that young man and me.
I still wish I had more of his words.
There are places in the notebooks where I cannot quite make out what I wrote. I will have to leave those gaps. There is enough I remember to keep writing.
A special thank you to Rishita Sharma 💗 for her kindness and encouragement.
My heartfelt appreciation also goes to all the wonderful writers who have supported me along the way. Your thoughtful words, kindness and encouragement mean more to me than you may realise. I may not mention everyone by name, but please know that your support is never forgotten.🪴
