A Quote by Jeannette Walls
Mom could say that in hindsight, but it seemed to me that when you were in the middle of something, it was awful hard to figure out what part of it was God's will and what wasn't.
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I learned as a really young kid, when my dad was telling me one story and my mom was telling me another that, even as a 5-year-old boy, there was no way that both of these stories are true. Something in the middle is true, and I have to figure out what it is, what the truth is, and I never did quite figure that out.
My mom was a pretty hard worker. She worked her ass off, but I'd say we were middle class. I had a car in high school, so I loved the idea that I could mimic this lifestyle.
The reason the middle section switches to third person is, well, this is middle age. This is the part in her life where she loses track of something that was driving her and has to figure out what's going to drive the next part of her mission, this mission to be an author. I had to push back away from her for a while before we could come up to that really lyrical close third in the final section.
But here's the deal: If I were smart, I could figure out curling. If I were even smarter, I could figure out why people would actually watch other people doing it. I have tried. I can't. I can't even figure out the object of the game. Is it like darts? I just don't get it.
The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure.
So say I’m your mom.' 'What?' I said. 'I’m your mom,' he repeated. 'Now tell me you want to quit modeling.' I could feel myself blushing. 'I can’t do that,' I said. 'Why not?' he asked. 'Is it so hard to believe? You think I’m not a good role-player?' 'No,' I said. 'It’s just–' 'Because I am. Everyone wanted me to be their mother in group.' I just looked at him. 'I just… It’s weird.' 'No, it’s hard. But not impossible. Just try it.' A week earlier, I hadn’t even known what color his eyes were. Now, we were family. At least temporarily.
A lot of times in Hollywood, when casting directors find out you're of Middle Eastern descent, they go, 'Oh, you're Iranian? Great. Can you say, 'I will kill you in the name of Allah?'' I could say that, but what if I were to say, 'Hello, I'm your doctor.'
It's always hard for a writer to make herself into a character; I had to figure out what my defining characteristics were, and that's something I had to work through multiple drafts to figure out.
What can we do?" Mom asked again. I shrugged. But she kept asking, as if there were something she could do, until I just kind of crawled across the couch into her lap and my dad came over and held my legs really tight and I wrapped my arms all the way around my mom's middle and they held on to me for hours while the tide rolled in.
The fact is when I get pissed off about something or something awful has happened, I just say, 'You know what? Thank you very much. Thank you for the lyrics. Because that is exactly what you just gave me.' There's no real negative then. So if something happens, I don't cry about it. I just find myself a pen and I figure it out.
Going back, I wish I could have been in the moment a little bit more. I can't change it, but hindsight definitely makes me appreciative of the moment now - even if it's hard, or exhausting, it's all a part of the experience.
My mom is the kind of mom, when we would go to a friend of the family's house, and they would offer us something to drink or offer us something to eat, my mother would always say, 'Tell them no.' You could be starving - you could be dehydrated - but as kids, we were supposed to tell the host, 'No.'
For me, the teen years were all about searching for a place for myself, wondering why I seemed so different than everyone else, wondering especially why no one could look past the surface and figure out who I really was underneath.
Leaders, your God-given job is not merely to preside over something, not to pontificate to your underlings how smart you are, not merely to preserve something from its gradual demise; it's to figure out what God wants to get done in this world, figure out what role you play in that, and then to move something or someone from here to there.
I remember when I started acting and didn't get a part and was really jealous of the girl who got it. My mom would say to me, "If you don't get a part, that means it's not your part. It's just not yours. You will have your parts." It really recalibrated me at a very young age to where I could be driven because I was trying to achieve things for myself, and that had nothing to do with what anybody else was doing.
Luck is one thing. It has always been there, it has always been a part of my success. It's a part of everyone's success. Without it, you can't be successful. But luck is something you have to stimulate, something you have to nurture through the choices you make...That's why things have always worked out for me. Things work out not just because I'm lucky, but because I plan ahead. I figure out what I want and I go for it. I've always spent a lot of time trying to surround myself with the right people, the kinds of teammates who could lead me to my goals.
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