012 / INTRODUCTION 019 / OBSERVATION 022 2 028 0 8 034 3 040 4 044 0 044 4 049 063 / REFLECTION 056 5 058 0 8 065 070 7 0 072 2 078 089 / EXPLORATION 082 8 091 0 1 098 10 04 112 2 116 A 12 20 12 1 124 4 13 30 13 36 142 2 144 151 / CREATION 15 53 15 1 8 8 162 16 66 17 1 2 2 176 188 / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 189 / CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES 18 82 8 PREFACE DRAWING FROM LIFE 9 they do not even amount to a writer’s journal. Rather, they contain the e- tional stuff of everyday life, a young woman’s search for self: some whining and self-pity, a lot of fretting, and occasional joy. Unceremoniously, I keep the books—no two are alike in size or color—in a cardboard box along with old calendars and address books, which serve their own journal-like purposes. But only rarely do I open them. Their pages makes me squirm. There goes Blindly in Love at 19, followed by Depressed and Searching at 24, and Confused about the Motherhood Decision at 31. Yet no matter how discomforting it is to revisit these earlier selves, I’m pulled into the narrative and read on in order to remember what it was like to be me at those different junctures.