It’s incredible how we need many words to describe one single word. With my next book, that’s what I am attempting to do. Write many words about one word, and that one word represents an idea or concept. It’s a word I ended my first book with, thinking at the time how profound it would be to do so. I thought I had found an answer, and indeed, I had found an answer, but that answer was so much more complicated than I had ever imagined. It was a sales pitch, a thread of hope to hang by, that, without understanding, meant nothing. 

I certainly don’t believe that my first book meant nothing. I believe that the concept and message that I arrived at to end it with was profound. My eyes had been opened to the struggles of others, rather than the judgment. I saw people that I had come to hate, and disagree with fundamentally, in a much different light, recognizing the very thing they lacked to be their best selves, and I saw this same thing in myself as well. What I saw was how impossible it is to be our best selves without this word, this concept, and that concept is: support. 

I’ve come up with several different beginnings for this new book. Every time I sit down to think about it, I come up with a new beginning which is a frustration all on its own. The point is I have options for beginnings. I also have ways I know I can flesh it out and fill it full of words to describe this idea and use my memories to illustrate the message I’m trying to convey, but the ending of a book is always a struggle. I didn’t think I would come to an ending easily, and I kind of thought I would have to write the entire book without an ending before one came to me. Today, however, an idea sparked its bright light in my face. I have many beginnings, I have ideas for the middle, and now I have a single idea for an ending. 

What I’ve learned with endings, and I stated this in my last post about the Winter Solstice, is that they always have new beginnings, and we are not limited to the number of endings or beginnings we can have. If I have learned only one thing from my time on this earth, it is exactly that. I have had so many endings and so many beginnings. It has been earth-shattering each time, but with time, and repetition of these experiences, the trauma has actually lessened with these endings and beginnings, and now I even embrace the inevitability of both. 

There is now a potential ending to my book about this single word and concept we call support, and that ending sparks another beginning, that’s how I knew this could be exactly how this book is tied together with all the endings and all the beginnings that have come and gone or will come and go. Developing an ending is difficult, but it's pretty basic: what is the conclusion? With all the words you spilled onto the page, how do you sum up the overall message and leave the reader with something to hold onto or carry with them? I haven't written fiction before, but I believe it's a little different from writing a memoir. With my first memoir, I had to sit with all of this pain I was holding onto very tightly, and ask myself repeatedly, what the hell is the message of this book? What do I want to give to other people who read these memories? What is the point? The point ended up being support because I saw it as the very thing we all lacked in so many ways. If only we'd had support... wouldn't things have been different? And isn't that the point of any memoir? What would we do differently? What can we help others do differently? How can we save others from the pain we've endured? Questions, leading into other questions, and so on and so on... etc. etc. etc.

Can we save anyone, though? Sometimes yes, but also sometimes no, and that "no" is how I came up with my newest ending. It's still developing, and this stage of writing is incredibly exciting to me.

This is an idea I’ve sat on for a few years, while pieces of my life have come together. I had to spend some time falling apart, and then spend even more time picking myself up and creating something more stable before I could tackle this idea. Now that I have that more-stable-life it's very exciting that this idea is taking shape and developing interesting layers. I like that I have time to think about it and do something with it. I hope it becomes something that, even if it can't heal the world, it can at least shine a bright light on the things we all need but don't have words for. I want to give the world the words I have fought so hard to find.

I’ll follow this up with a New Year’s Eve post about my resolutions for the coming year, and years to come. It’s pretty amazing to finally be in a place in my life where I can look forward longer than a single year, and see how all the pieces of who I have been that have crumbled, can be recycled with this new version of who I am today. 

Thank you for being here.

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-A. Diamond